Demons and Fairies
by NikittyKat
Summary: Lynn and Renee are demon hunting specialists from Lamia Scale, and they're out on yet another mission. While assisting a strange village on a cursed island, they meet a couple of mages from Fairy Tail, a guild they've been meaning to join. But can they all really get along well enough to work together?
1. Chapter 1

"Hey Lynn, get over here!" Renee called over her shoulder as she stared at the job postings, flicking her long, wavy brown hair out of her face. Pulling one of the slips of paper off of the board, she turned to face her approaching younger partner and held it up. "This one looks promising."

"Hm? What is it?" the slim ginger girl asked, gently taking the paper from Renee's gloved hand to take a closer look.

"It's for some island. People say that it's cursed and infested with demons... no one is willing to go near it."

"Demons, huh?" Lynn muttered, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Sounds like our kind of job. The reward is nice, too."

"Of course it is," Renee commented, rolling her green eyes. "It is an S-class job, after all."

Lynn carefully folded the paper and put it in her pocket, turning on her heel and heading out of the door as she did so, her partner not far behind. "So it is. Let's go."

From behind a support, a young boy watched as they left, barely poking his head out enough to see. "What are you doing there, Jean?" The boy jumped when he heard the deep voice behind him. Turning to look behind him, he saw that Jura, one of the Ten Great Mages and the strongest mage in Lamia Scale, was standing there.

Jean felt his face turn crimson. "N-nothing, sir," he stuttered, embarrassed that he had been caught. "It-it's just... are those two really who I think they are?"

Jura simply stood there silently for a moment, staring at the boy thoughtfully. Jean found it very unnerving, and he soon began to fidget under his gaze. Finally, the older man spoke. "You are new to Lamia Scale, no?"

"Um... yes? I mean, I just got here yesterday..."

Jura sighed and leaned back against the wall. "I thought so," he said, still seemingly deep in thought. "Yes, Jean, they are who you think they are, but I can assure you that nothing you have heard about them could possibly prepare you for the real thing."

"Really?" the boy gasped, suddenly in awe. "But that redheaded girl couldn't have been much older than me! How could they be that powerful?"

"They're demon slayers," Jura said, shrugging. "Anything is possible with them."

"How annoying," Renee commented, sighing dramatically. "Of course all of the local sailors would turn out to be cowards..."

"I wouldn't say that," Lynn reasoned, blue eyes scanning the ocean for any signs of a boat whose crew they hadn't already talked to. "After all, it's not like everyone is a powerful mage. Fearing for your life for a good reason isn't exactly the same as being a coward."

"Whatever," the older girl huffed, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. "Still... you'd think somebody would at least be able to take us there. We aren't even asking them to get off of their boats, but with the way they've reacted so far, you'd think that we were asking them to jump off a cliff or something." She began to pace back and forth along the width of the dock, thoughtfully tapping her fingers on her chin as she did so. "Why don't we just rent a boat? I'm sure I could get the hang of it quickly enough, and you could do the navigating."

Lynn sighed, finally turning away from the vast expanse of water to look her partner in the eye. "Well with the way things are going right now, that might actually be our best bet."

"Can you guys just figure something out already, please?" asked a tiny voice. "Standing around like this is boring!" Suddenly, a miniscule ball of orange flame materialized in the air just above the younger girl's right shoulder, quivering as it spoke.

"I agree with Kien," Renee butted in, nodding to the little ball of fire. "We obviously aren't making any progress this way."

"Fine," Lynn finally caved, playing with the tip of her braid and walking back to the town. "We can rent a boat, I guess."

"Yes!" her brunette companion cheered under her breath as she caught up.

"Finally," Kien added, still hovering over the redheaded girl's shoulder.

It didn't take long for the trio to find a fisherman who was willing to rent them a boat for a reasonable price, so they were rowing out of the harbor well before midday. "If only we'd done this in the first place," Kien mumbled once they were a good distance from the shore. "We probably would've gotten there by now."

"Whatever you say, shrimp," Renee replied before turning to Lynn. "So, where are we headed, sis?"

"Don't call me that..." Lynn muttered, barely loud enough for the older girl to hear. Looking up, she noted the position of the sun before turning back to her map. After a moment, she pointed. "That way."

Renee grinned. "Sure thing, sis."

"I thought I told you not to call me that!"

"Whatever."

After a few hours at sea, Lynn had sprawled herself out on the boat, basking in the intense heat of the sun overhead. She may as well take this chance to work on her tan, right? Not that she really had much of one in the first place. Gingers just don't look right with dark skin.

Feeling incredibly bored, she sat up slightly, looking to her companions for entertainment. Renee stood at the back of the boat, still rowing in the direction that her partner had pointed out to her previously. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to distract her at the moment, and Kien was asleep in a pile of ropes. Lynn sighed audibly. When would this trip be over?

"Hey, Lynn… you awake?" The younger girl looked up at the sound of Renee's voice. She was still standing at the back, steering the boat, squinting her eyes at the horizon.

"Yeah," Lynn replied, stretching. "I'm awake. What is it?"

"Look. You see that?" Following the older girl's gaze, the thin ginger looked across the water to the east. A miniscule shadow was sluggishly rising on the horizon, pitch black against the brilliant blue sky. "I think it's safe to say that we've found it. We should get there in a half an hour at most, okay? So make sure you're ready."

"Right." Turning away from her partner, Lynn crawled over to where her tiny orange friend was sleeping. "Kien?" she whispered, poking it gently in the side. "Kien? Wake up, we're going to be there soon."

"What? Are we there?" Kien cried, jumping up and floating to its place on the girl's shoulder. "Oh. Well you could have woken me up when we were a little closer, you know?"

"Sorry," Lynn replied, shrugging apologetically. "I wasn't really sure how long it would take you to wake up."

"Not long, apparently," Renee added before her partner could say anything. Lynn chose not to reply, instead scooting to the front of the boat and watching the island grow bigger on the horizon as they got closer.

"I'm going back to sleep!" Kien announced some time later, drifting from Lynn's shoulder over to the ropes again.

"Don't bother. We're here, " the brunette in the back said, jumping out of the boat and dragging it to shore.

Lynn nearly fell as she stepped onto the hot sand, not quite able to walk yet. The two girls both walked around and stretched their legs for a bit as Kien floated farther down the beach to explore. The little fireball came back five minutes or so after that, once the demon slayers had gotten used to being on solid land.

"Hey guys!" it called, flying back to its place on Lynn's shoulder. "I think somebody else is already here."

"What do you mean?" the redheaded girl inquired, cocking her head to the side curiously.

"I saw the wreckage of another boat a little farther that way," Kien replied, jerking to the right. "There weren't any bodies, but there were footprints going off into the forest."

"Weird," Renee muttered, crossing her arms and starting off in the direction that their little friend had indicated.

"Thanks, Kien," Lynn added cheerfully, smiling at it brightly.

The group migrated over to the other part of the beach, coming across the remains of a boat that was very similar to their own. As Kien had said, there were footprints scattered all about the crash site, coming together at one point before going off into the trees.

Renee crouched down to get a closer look. "There were three people and one small mammal," she deduced, staring hard at one tiny set of tracks in particular. "Or at least I think it's some sort of mammal, judging from the shape of the paw. But from the way the prints are spaced, it almost looks like whatever it was was standing up and walking on two legs."

"That's bizarre," Lynn commented, squatting beside the older girl. "Could it be a demon?"

"Possibly. But somehow I doubt it."

"Hmm..." The ginger girl stood, drumming her fingers on her face. "Well, let's find out. From what I've heard, the village that we've come here to help is the only civilization on the island. Whoever left these footprints probably went there."

"You're right," Renee agreed, standing up as well. "It'll save us time looking for it if we just follow them. Come on." Pushing aside a low tree branch, the brunette began cutting her way through the forest, keeping an eye on the ground as her partner followed closely behind.

The village turned out to be much closer than they'd anticipated, and pretty soon they heard voices filtering through the trees not far ahead.

"Let's break it," said a loud, obnoxious sounding male voice from only a few yards away. Lynn and Renee reached the edge of the woods, crouching in the bushes to stay out of sight. Peering through the leaves, the girls saw a group of three teenagers and a blue, upright walking cat. The loud voice belonged to a lean, muscular boy with dark eyes and rose-colored hair. He wore a vest instead of a shirt, a scarf made of scales, sandals, and baggy white trousers.

"NO!" shouted the only girl in the group, who had blonde hair, big brown eyes, and a lot in the chest area. She looked very exasperated with the pink-haired boy.

They were standing in front of a giant crude wooden gate, on which was mounted a very large 'KEEP OUT' sign. The wall seemed to stretch on a ways, so the girls hiding in the bushes could only assume that the village they were looking for was inside.

"Who's there?" called a deeper, gruffer voice from the top of the gate, hearing the teenagers' arguing. The girl stepped forward, holding her hands out to her sides to show him that she wasn't hiding anything.

"We're from the mage guild Fairy Tail," she began, smiling up at the man on the gate. "Erm... we saw your request..."

"Fairy Tail?" replied the man on the gate. He sounded suspicious. "We know nothing of you guys accepting our request."

"Fairy Tail?" Lynn repeated in a whisper, turning to look at Renee in confusion. "If Fairy Tail accepted the request, why-"

She didn't get to finish, because before she knew it her older partner had leapt out of the bushes to stand in the middle of the clearing, behind the Fairy Tail mages. She was quiet, so nobody but the guard at the top noticed her presence at first. He let out a surprised grunt, causing the three teenagers and the cat to turn around. Everyone froze when they saw her, shocked. Once she was sure that she had everyone's attention, Renee spoke. "I don't know why you're here, either," she said slowly, smirking and crossing her arms. "Because I'm pretty sure that my guild accepted this job, not yours."

"And who are you, exactly?" the second Fairy Tail boy asked, scowling at the unexpected newcomer. This boy had a smoother, slightly deeper voice than the pink haired one. He was lean and slim with dark eyes, black windswept hair, and pale skin. He was slightly taller than the first boy, and he stood with a cool guy kind of slouch, hands in his pockets.

"My name is Lynn." The three teenagers and the cat jumped back when they saw the ginger appear behind her partner, smiling at them politely with a little flame floating over her shoulder. "This is Kien," she continued, pointing to the ball of fire, "and this is Renee. We're from Lamia Scale."

The pink haired boy stared at her with a disbelieving look on his face for a few moments. "I thought only S-class mages could accept this quest..." he said, continuing to stare.

"We are S-class mages, kid!" Renee laughed, causing the boy to scowl.

"Who are you calling a kid?" he yelled, shaking his fist at her. "Let's fight! Right now!"

Suddenly, the blonde girl gasped. "Natsu, wait!" she cried, pulling him back by the arm. "I recognize them! They're the Demonic Duo of Lamia Scale! They're sisters, and very famous demon hunting specialists!"

"Demon hunting specialists?" the dark haired boy repeated quietly to himself, looking at the girls more closely.

"Sisters?" repeated Natsu much more loudly and unnecessarily. "But they don't look anything alike! That one has orange hair, blue eyes, freckles, a round face, and a normal skin tone. And THAT one has brown hair, green eyes, no freckles, an oval face, and the complexion of a vampire!"

The blonde rolled her eyes. "Okay Natsu, we get it. No need to go into so much detail."

"I don't see how they're related, either," the other boy put in, still staring at the siblings.

"Um... hello? We're right in front of you guys, you know," Renee interjected before anyone else could speak, crossing her arms again and tapping her fingers on her arm impatiently.

"So..." Everyone looked up at the sound of the guard's voice, having completely forgotten that he was there in the first place. "Did you guys come here to argue or to help us with our problem?"

"We came to help, of course," Lynn said sweetly, not missing a beat as she smiled up at him.

"So did we!" Natsu cried, clenching his fists as he continued to stare 'menacingly' at the older girl from Lamia Scale.

"But you guys didn't accept our request," the guard said uncertainly. "Lamia Scale did."

"I told you this was all just a waste of time," the dark haired boy mumbled, giving Natsu a death glare.

Lynn continued to smile sweetly. "But they've come all this way!" she reasoned, to the surprise of everyone. "We could work together!"

"No way!" Natsu yelled immediately, scowling. "I'm not working with her." He glared fiercely at Renee with those last words.

"Natsu! Think about it! Don't you want to-" the sisters couldn't hear the last of the blonde girl's words, because she'd pulled her pink haired companion off to the side and started whispering in his ear.

Slowly, Natsu's expression changed to one of defeat. "Fine," he muttered, hunching over and crossing his arms.

"What did I even do?" Renee asked. Lynn shrugged, glancing over at her sister for only a moment before looking back up to the guard.

"Is that okay? I mean, we have more chance of success this way, right?"

The scruffy man at the top deliberated for a moment before slowly nodding. "I don't see why not," he finally said. "Show me your symbols."

Natsu turned at an angle so that the man could see his shoulder, the blonde girl held up her right hand, the dark haired boy lifted his shirt, and the weird blue cat moved it's backpack over so that he could could see the mark on his back. Renee turned so that the side of her right leg was clearly visible to the man. Her Lamia Scale symbol was right in between where her shorts ended and the strips of grey cloth she used as knee pads began. Lynn rolled down her left sock so that he could see the mark on her ankle.

Suddenly a second man appeared at the top of the wall. "Strip the girls," he said, staring intensely at them.

"Why? That has nothing to do with this!" cried the blonde, staring at the newcomer in shock. "Where did you come from, anyway?"

"Let me kill him," Renee muttered to her sister, a dark look on her face.

"No!" Lynn cried, lightly punching her partner in the arm. "He may be a pervert, but he's still a client!"

"I'm sorry, I got carried away," the younger guard apologized weakly, looking rather sheepish.

"Get in," the first man said with a sigh, opening the gate. "I'll get the mayor."

The five teens, the cat, and the fireball didn't move at first, most of them still confused about what was going on.

"So..." the blonde girl began awkwardly, scuffing her shoe on the ground. "I guess we're working together now, huh?"

"Why would you want to work with us?" the dark haired boy interjected before Lynn could speak.

"Yeah, why?" Renee asked, turning to look at her little sister curiously.

The ginger girl shrugged. "I want to see if Fairy Tail is really all that it's made out to be," she said, glancing over at Natsu, "and if their S-class mages are really as powerful as people say they are."

At those last words, the three teenagers from the other guild all paled visibly, confirming Lynn's suspicions. These mages weren't S-class. They had likely taken on this job without permission, which is why the posting had still been up in Lamia Scale, and why the guard hadn't heard about them accepting their request. Still, she wanted to see Fairy Tale in action. She'd heard a lot about Natsu Dragoneel, his cat Happy, and Gray Fullbuster, the dark haired boy she recognized from magazines. The third member of the group, the blonde girl, was unknown to her.

"Fair enough," Renee said after a pause, her gaze sweeping over the Fairy Tail mages. "Let's go, then. We don't want to keep our clients waiting." With that, she turned on her heel and waltzed right through the gate like she owned the place.

"Right," Gray muttered as he followed her, the rest of the group not far behind. "Let's go see what's up."

The gate closed behind them once they had all gathered in the mouth of the village square, waiting for the villagers in front of them to say something. After a long pause, the old man in the front, who was mostly covered in bright woven cloth and could be none other than the mayor, spoke. "Thank you for coming here, mages," he said, his grating voice muffled by the scarf that covered his head. "I'm sorry if this seems sudden, but please look at this. Everyone, take off your robes." The last bit was a command to the mob of villagers behind him, who were all just as covered up as he. Heeding their mayor's orders, they all removed their heavy coverings, revealing the identities of the people underneath. Every last one of them had at least one body part that resembled that of a demon, each one varying in size, shape, color, and texture. The mayor was silent as he held up his own arm, which was bony, scaly, and pitch black, warped into a spiky, claw-like shape.

"I knew it," Renee and Gray whispered at the same time as they studied the spectacle before them. They glanced at each other briefly, but didn't say a word, instead turning back to the cursed townspeople, their faces unreadable.

Lynn didn't react at all, continuing to stare as evenly at the mayor as she had been the whole time. The blonde girl beside her gulped and backed away a step, obviously shaken.

Natsu's reaction was completely different and totally unexpected. "Awesome sideburns!" he exclaimed, jaw hanging open. Neither him nor Happy seemed to be paying any attention at all to the fact that the villagers were part demon. Lynn gave the pink haired boy a strange, sidelong glance, wondering what was wrong with him. She chose not to say anything, however, opting to keep the fact that she thought said sideburns were nothing short of disgusting to herself.

"Well, I actually wanted to show you this hand..." the mayor said, giving Natsu the same queer look that Lynn had given him only moments before. "Did it surprise you?" Instead of waiting for a reply from the mages, he continued, "Everyone on this island... even the dogs and the birds... are affected by this curse."

"It's not like I'm questioning you or anything," Gray began, "but how do you know that this is a curse? Couldn't it just be a disease or something like that?"

"It's not a disease," Renee replied before the old man could, shooting Gray a funny look. "What disease would turn a person into a demon? No, our problem here is not as simple as an illness," the brunette continued, shaking her head.

"What do you know?" Natsu asked, looking at her doubtfully. "Are you a doctor or something?"

"I don't have to be," she retorted, giving him a haughty look.

"Remember, Natsu?" the blonde girl said, tapping the pink-haired boy on the head. "Demon hunting specialists?"

"Oh, yeah," he remembered, grinning. "My bad."

"You don't have to say anymore," Lynn said to the mayor, ignoring the other mages' petty quarreling. "I already know what we have to do."

"You do?" inquired the mayor, raising an eyebrow. "So you know that you must destroy the moon, then?"

"WHAT?!" the three Fairy Tail mages gasped simultaneously, thoroughly shocked.

"Of course," Lynn replied, smiling sweetly.

Her sister glanced at her for a moment, a confused expression on her face. Then their eyes met, and she smiled. "Yes," she said, turning back to the mayor. "We can definitely do that."

"You, too?" Gray cried, completely lost.

"Oh, come on," Renee laughed, turning to the bewildered dark haired boy beside her. "It'll be easy!"

"You're out of your mind..." he replied under his breath, glancing up at the sky, where the moon was just beginning to rise.

The blonde girl behind him followed his gaze, gasping when she saw it. "Is the moon... purple?" she asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

But her attention snapped back to the villagers almost immediately, for they had begun to change. Their human flesh was melting away completely, being replaced by more demon skin. It was a horrifying spectacle, and it wasn't long before every last villager had completed their transformations into full-fledged demons.

"Yay!" Kien laughed, bouncing up and down on Lynn's shoulder. "You guys look much better now!"

"Kien, shush," Lynn whispered, silencing her little friend with a glare.

Turning to look behind her, Renee saw that the Fairy Tail mages were having trouble coping with this sudden turn of events. The blonde girl looked particularly distraught, eyes wide with fear and mouth hanging open.

"Yes," the mayor-now a horrifying demon-said, his voice ten times as deep and scratchy as before. "Sorry if we scared you... When the purple moon comes out, we turn into these ugly demons."

"As I thought," Lynn said softly, continuing to gaze at him as though nothing unusual had happened at all. "You become human again in the morning, yes?" she asked, absentmindedly stroking Kien. "But I'm willing to bet that people haven't been changing back recently."

"Yes," the old demon sobbed, reaching for something under his cloak. "Some of us will not turn back during the day, and become full demons. They have lost their souls, and so we have been forced to kill them." Finding what he had been looking for, he pulled out a photograph of a square-faced man with a thin black beard, wearing a white sailors' bandanna. At this point, the mayor had begun to burst into tears, holding up the picture so that the mages could see. "Because of this, I've even had to kill my own son."

The Fairy Tail mages gasped when they saw the picture. "Huh? But yesterday... we-" the blonde started saying, before Gray cut her off.

"Shhh!" he hissed, nudging the girl beside him. "I guess we know why he just vanished," he whispered. "I'm sure... he can't rest in peace like that." The mayor didn't seem to hear him, but the Lamia Scale mages did. They shared a brief glance before looking back to their client, so as not to seem suspicious.

"If this keeps on going..." the mayor sighed, head bowed in despair. "Everyone... will lose their soul... and turn into demons..."

"I won't let that happen!" Natsu declared, his face serious and determined.

"Thank you," the mayor said, smiling sadly. "If you can do this for us, we will be in your debt." The mages looked at each other, each of them resigned to carrying out their supposedly impossible task. "You may start in the morning," the old demon continued, gesturing to a nearby hut. "You may stay here for the night and gather your energy. I am sorry, but we only have one house to spare. You will all have to spend the night together."

At this, Natsu and the blonde girl both cringed.

"You mean I have to sleep in the same room as them?" the girl asked, pointing to her two male companions.

"With those guys?" Natsu cried, waving his arm at the Lamia Scale mages.

"I'll try not to be offended," Lynn muttered, frowning.

"If it's going to be a problem, I could always sleep outside," Renee shrugged, indifferent.

"No!" the mayor cried, throwing his hands up. "You must all remain inside tonight! The moon could change you into demons, too!"

Renee gave the man a skeptical look, but didn't say anything.

"What's the problem?" Gray asked, shrugging. "It's just one night."

"Yeah," the blonde girl agreed, resigned to the fact that she was going to have to spend the night in the company of boys. "Since we're going to be working together, we could take this opportunity to get to know each other!" She smiled, looking hopefully at Natsu.

He scowled and crossed his arms, but eventually nodded his head. "Okay," he said, apparently getting tired of arguing. "I guess it would be pretty bad if you guys turned into demons."

The sisters chuckled under their breath as they followed the Fairy Tail mages into the tiny hut.

"What's so funny?" Natsu asked, turning around to stare curiously at the girls.

"Oh, it's nothing," Lynn said.

"Don't worry about it," Renee muttered at the same time.

The entire hut consisted of one decently-sized, conservatively furnished room. There were no beds in sight, but there was a tall stack of clean sheets sitting neatly on top of one of the chairs in the corner, as well as a pile of deflated-looking pillows on the floor beside it.

"So..." Renee started, plopping down on the floor and leaning against the wall. "I already know who some of you are, but I'm going to go ahead and let you all introduce yourselves."

"Oh! That's right, you guys don't know who I am, do you?" laughed the blonde girl, embarrassed. "My name is Lucy, and this is Natsu, Gray, and Happy!" She gestured to each of her companions in turn, smiling brightly.

"You're a Stellar Spirit mage, right Lucy?" asked Lynn, settling into a chair near one of the windows.

"Yup! I guess you noticed my keys, huh?"

"That's cool," Renee said, taking a good look at the keys on Lucy's belt for the first time. "I don't believe I've ever met a Stellar Spirit mage."

"You haven't?" Lucy asked, cocking her head to the side. "Well that's not too surprising, I guess... they aren't very common."

"So am I correct in assuming that you came along because you want the Zodiac Gate Key?" the brunette asked, stretching her legs out in front of her .

"I want to help the villagers, too!" Lucy insisted, looking only slightly hurt by the other girl's assumption. "But yes, I do want the key. Really badly."

"And what kind of mages are you?" Gray asked from his place in the middle of the floor. "We don't obsess over magazines like Lucy, so we wouldn't know."

"What are you doing?" Lynn asked, aghast, noticing that the dark haired boy was no longer wearing anything but his boxers. "Where are your clothes?"

Gray looked down at himself, startled. "Crap," he said in a rather irritated tone, looking around for his clothes. "I did it again!"

"Does he make a habit of subconsciously stripping?" Renee asked the blonde beside her, watching as the bewildered Gray located his pants beneath the table across the room.

"Yeah," Lucy replied, extremely embarrassed now, "this kind of thing happens all the time."

"Weird..." the brunette muttered, fascination by far overshadowing her hint of disgust.

"You have issues," her younger sister said, glaring at her and shuddering. "This is downright inappropriate."

"If I didn't know any better," Gray commented, struggling to pull on his pants, "I'd say that she was the older sister."

"You calling me immature?" Renee asked, shooting him an icy glare.

"No," he responded, putting his shirt back on. "I'm just saying that she's way too mature for someone her age... and from what I've seen so far, she tends to take charge of things."

"How old are you guys, anyway?" Natsu interjected, finally contributing to the conversation.

"I'm seventeen," Renee told him, pointing to herself, "and Lynn is fourteen."

"You're seventeen? So are we!" declared Natsu, gesturing to himself and Gray. "I think."

"So am I!" Lucy added, giving a little wave.

"I'm actually eighteen," Gray corrected, but nobody paid him any mind.

"Okay..." Renee muttered, rolling her eyes. "That's nice, I guess..."

"Back to my question," Gray reminded the girls, leaning back against a wardrobe. "What kind of mages are you?"

"We're Demon Slayers," the sisters responded simultaneously, smiling secretively.

"Demon Slayers?" Lucy asked, glancing at Natsu. "Those wouldn't happen to be related to Dragon Slayers, would they?"

"It's a similar concept," Lynn explained, fidgeting with the tip of her braid. "But while Dragon Slayers are endowed with the power of dragons to fight them, Demon Slayers are granted demonic powers in order to defeat them. Again, like Dragon Slayers, the basis of Demon Slaying magic is elemental. We eat our given elements, as you do, Natsu. But our fighting style is different from yours, and unlike most mages- Dragon Slayers included- we also use enchantments, which use a different source of energy than your more commonly known and more widely accepted magic."

"Huh?" Natsu grunted, obviously not keeping up with the fourteen-year-old's explanation. "I don't get it."

"You mentioned that your powers are elementally based," Gray began, grabbing a couple sheets and a pillow from the stock in the corner. "So what elements do you guys use?"

"I'm a Fire Demon Slayer," Lynn replied, grinning proudly.

"Really?" Natsu asked, suddenly getting excited. "Say, I'd like to taste your fire sometime!" he exclaimed, smiling stupidly.

"I would, too!" the ginger laughed. "Try your fire, that is. I've never tasted dragon fire before..."

"And what is your element?" Gray asked, ignoring the fire mages and turning to Renee.

"I'm a Shadow Demon Slayer," she said, shrugging.

Lucy gasped. "Does that mean you eat shadows?"

"Yup. But I can only eat shadow magic or the shadows of naturally inanimate objects. I can't eat the shadows of people or animals," Renee explained, shaking her head.

"Can I see?" Lucy asked, smiling hopefully at the brunette.

"Um... sure?" the Shadow Demon Slayer girl replied, chuckling nervously under the blonde's intense stare. Reaching towards the nearest inanimate shadow- the shadow of a vacant chair- she grasped it tightly in her black gloved hand, tearing it free from the floor and the wall. Raising it to her mouth, she inhaled deeply, sucking the darkness in. Once the last of the shadow had disappeared down her throat, Renee swallowed. "Not bad," she commented, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, "but not good, either."

Lucy and Gray just stared at her for a moment, disbelieving expressions on their faces. "You just ate a shadow," Lucy said quietly, eyes round.

"So what? Natsu eats fire all the time, right?"

"Yeah," Lucy confirmed, nodding slowly. "But you just ate a shadow. A normal person can't even touch a shadow, and you just ate one like it was no big deal."

"It's not," Renee shrugged, a little weirded out. "It's perfectly normal for me."

"Cool," Gray, who had absentmindedly been setting up his bed the whole time, finally commented. He yawned. "Well guys, I'm gonna turn in now. See you all tomorrow."

"Um, Gray..." Renee said awkwardly, stifling a laugh. "Your clothes..."

"What?" he asked, looking down at himself again. For the second time, all of his clothing save for his underwear had mysteriously disappeared. "Oh. Whatever. I'm going to sleep now anyway, so it doesn't matter, right?"

"I guess..." Renee replied, unsure about what to say. These Fairy Tail mages were very strange people.

"In fact, we should all go to sleep," Lynn said, capping off her brief conversation with Natsu. "Like the mayor said, we'll need all of our energy for tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Natsu admitted, throwing a sheet and a pillow on the floor a little ways from Gray and diving in.

Lucy and Lynn set up a bit further away, neatly laying out their sheets and crawling into bed. Renee grabbed all of the leftover sheets, crumpled them up, and threw them in a giant heap in the corner farthest away from everyone else, where she curled up like a cat with her back against the walls.

"Night, everybody," she yawned.

"Night," the other mages, the cat, and the fireball said before slowly drifting off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

"Rise and shine, you lazy humans! We've got work to do!" Kien's loud, high-pitched voice penetrated Renee's consciousness, jolting her awake. "That goes for you, too!" the minuscule fireball continued, drifting directly in front of Happy's fuzzy blue face. "Get up already, you mutant cat!"

"What time is it?" Lucy groaned, slowly sitting up and rubbing her eyes sleepily. Looking out the nearest window, she saw that the first rays of the sun were just beginning peek out from behind the trees. "Why are you waking us up so early?"

"The sun is awake, so I'm awake! And that means that we have to fight something!"

"Yeah, now we're talking!" Natsu agreed as he sprung out of his makeshift bed, hands balled into fists. "I'm all fired up!"

"Calm down guys," Lucy muttered, on her feet now. "We don't even know if this job is going to involve any fighting."

"It's an S-class job!" the pink haired boy argued. "Why wouldn't there be fighting?"

"You know, it could just be S-class because of the sheer impossibility of the job." Lucy tried reasoning, folding up her sheets and setting them neatly on the chair as they had been the night before.

"Stop arguing already and let's get moving!" Kien groaned impatiently, drifting over to the door.

"What is that thing, anyway?" Gray asked, nodding his head towards the enthusiastic little flame as the group finished cleaning up and exited the hut.

"Kien is a fire demon," Lynn replied smugly.

"Aren't you supposed to kill demons?" the dark haired boy inquired, only mildly confused.

"She's special," the ginger stated, leading the way through the village and towards the gate. "Anyway, today we'll be scouting the jungle for any clues about the curse. We can't destroy the moon until after we've figured out the cause."

"I wonder how many punches it would take..." Natsu wondered aloud.

"It's impossible to destroy a moon," Gray retorted, shaking his head disbelievingly.

"I agree... I don't think any mage can do such a thing." Lucy put in, frowning in Natsu's direction.

"I wouldn't be so sure," the shadow mage said, smiling.

"If we can't do it, that would be a disgrace to Fairy Tail," Natsu growled, determined to uphold the reputation of his guild.

"And to Lamia Scale," Lynn added in a more quiet tone. "But that shouldn't be a problem for us."

The guard at the gate looked quite surprised when he caught sight of the mages. "You're early. Were you unable to sleep because you were surrounded by demons?" he asked darkly, leaning over the side of the wall.

"It's not that. Please don't worry about it," Lucy insisted, holding up her hands apologetically.

"Could you let us out, please?" asked Lynn, craning her neck in order to see the man above. "We'd like to scout the island to see if we can find out anything more about the curse."

"Go ahead." A minute later the gate lifted, and the party began their venture into the jungle.

"How are you guys planning to destroy the moon, anyway?" asked Gray, turning to the two Lamia Scale mages.

"You'll see," Renee replied, smirking. "Just go with flow and do as we do, okay?"

"If that's all we're good for," Lucy began, crossing her hands behind her back, "why are we even here?"

"I already told you," Lynn replied impatiently, letting out a frustrated sigh, "I want to see what Fairy Tail is made of,"

"But why?" Natsu asked, kicking up a pebble in his path as he walked. Lynn didn't reply.

"To be honest," Renee said, seeing that her sister didn't feel like talking, "we're getting pretty bored with our guild. There's nobody really interesting in there." Gray raised an eyebrow at this, seeing where things were going. "We've heard so many great things about your guild," Renee continued, shrugging. "It's supposed to be powerful, fun, friendly, and very troublesome." She laughed. "But it's a good kind of trouble you guys always seem to get yourselves into. So... we've kind of been thinking about joining Fairy Tail."

"Really?" Lucy gasped, her eyes getting huge and a big smile lighting up her face. "That's great! You totally should!"

Neither Natsu or Gray said anything regarding the Lamia Scale mage's words, instead continuing to walk in silence. In fact, nobody said much of anything at all for a while, making their forest trek seem all the more meticulous. As they continued walking, Lucy's complaints grew more and more frequent. Pretty soon she was lagging far behind the rest of the group, dragging her boots through the thick underbrush.

"Ugh," the blonde groaned, coming to a complete stop. "That's it! I can't take this anymore!" Reaching for her belt, she whipped out a silver key. "Open! Gate of the Clock Constellation, Horologium!"

There was a blinding flash of light, out of the source of which a giant mobile grandfather clock stepped. Everyone stopped and turned around, wondering what it was, exactly, that Lucy was trying to do. A moment later the blonde was encased inside of the stellar spirit she had summoned. "'What are you stopping for?', she says," Horologium informed them, waddling up to the rest of the group. "'Come on, let's go!', she insists."

"You are such a wus," Renee snorted, turning away from the blonde in the clock and resuming walking.

"Are you sure you're using that stellar spirit the right way?" Gray asked, looking back at Lucy as he followed the brunette. The blonde mage girl didn't reply, instead shooting him a haughty look.

"Hey, I want to get in, too," Happy said, walking up to Lucy and Horologium.

"'Sure thing, Happy!' she says cheerfully," said the clock. A few seconds later, the door opened and the blue cat jumped in, resealing the stellar spirit behind him.

"You're both just a couple of lazy bums," Renee grunted, shoving her hands in her pockets as she walked.

Lucy's reply was cut short when a loud, low rumbling shook the earth, like the sound of a giant's footsteps. Everyone froze and faced the source of the sound, trying in vain to see what was coming through the trees.

Suddenly, a colossal blue mouse wearing a disturbing maid outfit burst into view, obliterating anything unlucky enough to get in its way.

"A mouse!" Natsu screamed, stating the obvious.

"It's humongous!" Gray added quite unnecessarily.

"'Guys! Hurry up and take it down already!' she screams," said the clock.

The two Fairy Tail boys fell into stances, preparing their magic. "Stay back, girls!" the pink haired one said, glancing briefly at the Lamia Scale sisters. "I'll show you how Fairy Tail does things!" At his words, the girls simply glanced at each other and rolled their eyes simultaneously.

Before the boys could attack, however, the giant mouse inhaled deeply, sucking as much air as it possibly could into its lungs.

"It's gonna spit something out!" Natsu warned, backing up a step.

A split second later, the big blue creature was spewing out a thick, green gas at the mages. The spray settled in the air all around them, it's putrid, repulsive stench wafting into their nostrils. Natsu and Gray immediately stopped in their tracks, holding their noses as their eyes watered uncontrollably. They both screamed and collapsed to the ground, unable to handle the horrifying smell. Even Lynn was having major trouble coping with the gas, standing firm, but scrunching up her face in obvious discomfort. Renee, on the other hand, seemed just fine.

"'Hey, guys! What's going on?' she says," sputtered the clock, right before it fell over and vanished, leaving Lucy and Happy lying in the dirt, suddenly exposed to the sickening fumes. The blonde nearly hurled right there, the smell was so intense. Staggering to her feet, she started taking off in the direction opposite the mouse, screaming "Run!" at the top of her lungs.

The other two Fairy Tail mages happily obliged, scrambling to get up and catch up with Lucy. Natsu was just passing Renee when her hand suddenly shot out and grabbed the back of his vest, preventing him from going any further.

"Where do you think you're going, mr. S-class mage?" she asked in a soft, frightening voice, smiling slightly. "You're the one who was looking for a fight!" With that, she cranked back her arm and threw the pink-haired dragon slayer straight at the face of the giant blue mouse. "Take that, you oversized rodent!"

"Are you trying to kill me?" Natsu screamed as he sailed in a clean arc through the air before slamming into the monster's jaw, knocking it over. The mouse crashed to the ground, causing a tremor big enough to be confused with an earthquake. Lucy, Gray, and Happy looked back to see what the commotion was, only just now realizing that Natsu and the Lamia Scale mages weren't with them.

"What are you doing, Natsu?" Lucy yelled at her companion. "I thought that you had the best sense of smell out of all of us! Aren't you dying right about now?"

"Yes," Natsu replied weakly, struggling to stand on the giant mouse's nose.

"Then why did you tackle it?" Gray asked, confused.

"I didn't!" the pink-haired boy fumed, stomping his foot on the rodent's face forcefully, causing it to squeak loudly. "She threw me!" He capped off his sentence by pointing at Renee, a comically furious expression on his face.

"Oops," was Renee's sarcastic response, shrugging her shoulders. "My bad."

Gray chuckled, shoving his hands back in his pockets. "Well at least we don't have to worry about that thing now."

"I'm not sure that we even had to worry about it in the first place," Lynn replied, speaking up. "It was pretty weak, after all."

Both Natsu and Gray scowled at her words, likely embarrassed to have been caught running away. "Whatever. Come on, let's keep going," Natsu waved, starting off in the direction that the other two Fairy Tail mages had been running earlier. The two Lamia Scale mages looked at each other, shrugging, before following along at the tail end of the group.

After only a few minutes of walking, Lucy, who was now in the front, gasped. "Look, there's a building up ahead!" she told the other mages excitedly, turning to them and pointing through the trees ahead, where the teenagers could just make out bits of an old stone ruin.

"What's that?" asked Happy, coming to a stop in front of its crumbling steps to stare at the enormous structure.

"It looks like the remains of some old building," Lucy replied, stepping slowly up the stairs and cautiously entering the decrepit structure.

"No, duh," Renee snorted, smirking as she ran her hand across the rough surface. Then, on a more quiet, serious note, she added, "It's beautiful."

"It's shabby," Natsu complained, walking up to the far wall and staring at the faded engravings there. "Look, moon-shaped marks."

"This place was originally called Moon Island," Gray pointed out, coming up beside the pink haired boy to examine the pictures for himself.

Happy stood in the middle of the ruin, making no move to study any aspect of it closer. "When do you think this place was built?" he wondered aloud, receiving no answer. Finally Natsu stomped over to join his cat friend, the others also eventually gathering into that general area.

"This is the place," Renee whispered to her sister. The two of them stood a little farther off from the rest of the group. Lynn merely nodded in reply, continuing to stare intently at the carvings on the wall to their left. The brunette beside her sighed contentedly. "It really is beautiful here. I can only imagine what it would have looked like in its full glory."

"It's really shabby, is what it is," Natsu grunted, stomping his foot on the stone repeatedly. "Is this floor even sturdy enough to carry us?"

No sooner had he spoken those words than the heavy grey bricks beneath his sandal gave way, and the entire floor beneath the mages proceeded to collapse.

"Idiot!" Lucy screamed as they fell, pummeling Natsu whenever she drifted closer to him.

"This floor's got no guts!" he replied, as though that were a perfectly valid excuse.

"How can a floor have any kind of guts?!"

"Lynn!" Kien cried frantically, completely ignoring the Fairy Tail mages' quarreling and diving after its human friend. Its mouth opened wider and wider as it neared her, until it had grown impossibly huge. Once it had finally gotten close enough, it swallowed her whole, continuing to plummet towards the ground at breakneck speed.

Kien, now twice the size of Gray, was the first to hit the floor. Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Happy came not long after, painfully crashing into the rocks below with nothing to cushion their fall. Natsu jumped up immediately, forcefully shoving chunks of rock and bits of debris out of his way. Lucy and Gray, on the other hand, got up more slowly, brushing the dirt off of their clothes.

Suddenly, Lucy gasped, seeing Kien and remembering what she had witnessed earlier. "Kien!" she cried, leaping back a step and wincing, cradling her aching head. "You ate Lynn!"

"She did what?!" Natsu roared, stomping angrily over to the enlarged fire demon, flames spilling out of his mouth and playing around his fingertips. "Spit her out!" he demanded, halting just inches away from what he could only assume was the thing's face. "I haven't gotten to taste her fire yet!"

"Calm down, Natsu." Lynn's muffled voice came from within her burning friend's stomach. "I'm fine. Better than any of you, actually." A moment later Kien opened its mouth, and the young ginger girl stepped out, completely unharmed. The fall actually didn't seem to have affected her at all.

As soon as her physical contact with her fire demon companion was cut off, Kien snapped back to its original size, hovering in its place over Lynn's shoulder as if it had never moved.

"What-why...?" Lucy stuttered, staring at the speck of flame in a shocked daze.

"Kien just protected me from getting injured," Lynn laughed, cuddling her little companion fondly. "She's sweet like that." At her words, Kien's flame went from orange to a brilliant red.

"Never mind that," Gray said, looking around the floor of the vast cavern that they had landed themselves in. "Where did Renee go?"

"Hm?" Natsu grunted, looking around as well. "I think I saw her disappear while we were falling."

"Disappear?" Gray repeated quietly. "And you didn't say anything?!"

"So she just... vanished?" Lucy asked, silently tilting her head to the side.

"Not completely. Her shadow was still there."

"Well then, where's her shadow?" Gray wondered aloud, moving on from the floor to scan the walls.

"Over there," Natsu stated plainly, pointing to the wall above them. A human shadow drifted down the rough stone surface, unattached to anything.

Lucy gasped. "Did she go inside her shadow?"

"No, not exactly," Lynn replied, still petting Kien. "It's more like she turned into one. She does that a lot."

They all watched in silence as the shadow reached the ground, just floating there on the wall. After a moment she stepped out into the air, now a three-dimensional form of translucent darkness. Slowly, Renee turned back to her normal, solid, human form, the shadows rolling off of her skin like mist.

"That's creepy," Lucy commented, shuddering slightly. "Why did you do that?"

"Well, it's not like I'll take any damage as a shadow," Renee replied, brushing the last of the darkness off of her shoulders. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Smart," Gray muttered, casually shoving his hands back in his pockets.

"Hey... where are we?" Lucy asked, moving on now that everyone was accounted for.

"I guess it's the basement of the remains from earlier," the dark haired boy deduced, staring up at the gaping hole in the ceiling far above them.

"It's a secret cavern!" Natsu shouted at the same time, grinning hugely. "Since we're here, let's explore a little!"

"Do you feel that?" Lynn asked, leaning over to whisper in her sister's ear while the Fairy Tail mages were distracted.

"Yeah, I feel it," Renee replied, nodding slowly. "It's definitely down here somewhere."

"Natsu! Don't just go strolling around! You've gotten us into enough trouble already!" The girls' conversation was interrupted by Gray's voice.

Natsu, of course, didn't listen, instead continuing to waltz off towards the other end of the vast cave. Rounding a massive pile of rocks, he came to a sudden stop. "Oh?" he gasped, staring up at something that was hidden from the view of the other mages.

"Hmm?" Lucy cocked her head to the side, wondering what had surprised the energetic pink haired boy so much.

"What's up?" Gray and Renee asked at the same time, looking over at Natsu simultaneously. They exchanged an annoyed glance. "Will you stop doing that already?" Renee muttered, crossing her arms.

"I'm not doing anything. You're the one who needs to stop," Gray retorted, turning away from the brunette indignantly.

"Ladies, ladies..." Lynn began, laying a hand on each of their shoulders. "Break it up." She turned to Natsu before either of them could respond, a mildly amused smile plastered on her face. "What is it, Natsu?"

"What... is that...?" the bewildered Dragon Slayer breathed, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight before him.

Unable to bear not knowing any longer, the other four mages, the cat, and the fire demon rushed around the corner to see exactly what Natsu was talking about. When they did, they all froze in their tracks.

It was a giant black humanoid demon, frozen solid in an impossibly huge block of ice.

"Deliora?!" Gray cried, staring up at the thing with wide, horrified eyes. "No way! How can Deliora be here?!"

"You know what it is?" Natsu asked, finally tearing his eyes away from the enormous demon to look at the panicking dark haired boy beside him.

Gray ignored him, instead continuing to rant. "Impossible! Why is Deliora here?"

"Hey Gray, are you okay? Calm down. We'll figure this out, okay?" Renee tried comforting him, resting a hand on his shoulder. "I promise." The dark haired boy looked at her thankfully for a brief moment before putting his head in his hands.

"What is it?" Lucy asked, walking closer to the giant frozen thing. "Who is Deliora?"

Gray didn't respond immediately, so Lynn explained for him. "Deliora is the demon of disaster and misfortune," she said, gazing at the thing steadily. "It's well known as one of the most destructive demons in history. I'm surprised you've never heard of it."

"How can you be so calm all the time?" Gray spat, glaring at the ginger. "Aren't you ever surprised?" He looked back up at Deliora, taking a deep, shaky breath. "It hasn't changed one bit..."

"Gray. Stop," Renee whispered, her hand still on his shoulder. "You're upset. We get it. But you shouldn't take your frustration out on my sister."

"You're right," Gray sighed, straightening up and turning back to Lynn. "I'm sorry. It's just... I don't understand what Deliora's doing here! It doesn't make any sense..."

"It's alright," the ginger girl replied, smiling sadly. "Like Renee said, we'll figure it out. I already have an idea."

"Already?" Happy asked, looking up at Lynn wonderingly. "That was fast."

"Of course she's already come up with something! Lynn's a genius, you know!" Kien boasted, briefly swelling and glowing a little bit brighter.

"Woah woah woah!" Natsu stuttered, his face suddenly only inches away from Gray's. "Rewind! 'It hasn't changed one bit?' What do you mean? You've actually seen this thing before?"

"You ever heard of personal space?" the dark haired boy growled, backing up a few steps. "Yes, I have-"

He was cut off by a noise from the left end of the cavern. The mages froze, turning to face the source of the sound. It sounded like... footsteps. And they were getting closer.

"Someone's coming!" Lucy hissed, ducking. "Hide!"

Not needing to be told twice, everyone dove behind piles of rubble, save for Renee, who merely melted into the shadows, invisible.

A minute or so later, two teenage boys walked into the cavern, looking around suspiciously. One of them was short and serious-looking, with thick black eyebrows, big, spiky blue hair and narrowed eyes. The other was tall and thin, with straight, orange, shoulder-length hair, no shirt, dog ears, long green claws, and a stupid look on his face. Lynn's eyes grew wide when she saw them. What were they doing there?

"Is it around here that you heard voices?" the short one asked, looking up at Deliora briefly before sweeping his piercing gaze about the cave.

"Ooon," replied the dog boy, nodding his head.

"Daytime... I'm sleepy..." continued the first boy, not really paying any attention to his comrade. His words earned him another 'ooon' from the dog boy, whatever that meant. Lucy was beginning to wonder if he could even speak. Yawning, the blue haired boy turned to the weird guy beside him. "Did you get Moon Drip on you? You've got ears and stuff."

At his words, the dog boy suddenly exploded in a fit of rage, nearly causing Lucy to lose her balance in shock. "I didn't! It's just decorative! You should know that!"

"I'm just messing with you, idiot," the short boy laughed, smiling fondly at his not-so-bright friend.

"Ooon."

"Moon Drip?" Lucy whispered, turning to look at the ginger girl crouched beside her. "Is he talking about the curse?"

Lynn didn't answer, instead silently holding a finger to her lips to shush the older blonde girl.

"Yuuka. Toby," the new voice came from the cave entrance, where a girl about the same age as Renee was floating in. She had curly, strawberry pink hair tied into high pigtails, a short, black and pink silk dress, thigh-high, black leather, high-heeled boots, and a white feather boa. "I have sad news."

"Sherry," the blue-haired boy, Yuuka, greeted, the smile disappearing from his face.

"Ooon."

"Angelica was harassed by someone..." Sherry whimpered, her deep blue eyes downcast.

"It's just a mouse!" Toby barked, suddenly exploding again for no apparent reason.

Sherry frowned, distraught. "Angelica is not just a mouse. She is a hunter that gallops the darkness... and love."

"Love?" Renee muttered to herself, thinking back to the giant blue mouse thing that had attacked them earlier. "This girl needs some serious psychiatric help."

"They're not from this island," Natsu observed, sniffing the air. "Their smell's different."

"Aye," confirmed Happy, ears twitching. "They're not cursed, either. I'm not sure about that ear guy, though."

"Intruders, huh?" muttered Yuuka, attempting to steer the conversation back on track.

"Moonlight will gather soon," the pink haired girl observed, studying the sky through the hole in the ceiling above Deliora. "But how sad this is..." She turned back to Yukka, her expression forlorn. "We must get rid of them before he hears about it. Yes... before the moon shows herself..."

"I agree," the blue haired boy stated, nodding seriously.

"Ooon," Toby added.

"Since they saw Deliora, we can't let them get back alive."

"Yes. Eternal sleep to the intruders... in other words, 'love'."

"Death! We're going to kill them!"

The voices of the three mysterious teenagers seemed to hang on the air long after they had left, filling the hearts of the Fairy Tail mages with an ominous sense of foreboding.

"Well then..." Renee was the first to come out of hiding as well as the first to speak. "Looks like we're being hunted by a couple of freaks now, huh?" She chuckled, amused by the shocked expressions on the Fairy Tail mages' faces.

"What are we going to do now?" Lucy asked, looking around nervously.

"I don't think that those three are something to worry about," Lynn stated, staring intently at Deliora's frozen form as she thought. "Their boss might be, though, so we should be careful. Also, we now know that the source of magic for the Layer of Illusion is Moon Drip, which is being used in an attempt to melt the ice encasing Deliora."

"Melt the ice?" Gray whispered, horrified, leaning back against the rock wall behind him and sliding to the ground. "That's impossible..."

"Wait," Lucy said, holding up her hands in a 'stop' gesture. "How do you know these things, Lynn? And what's a Layer of Illusion?"

Renee laughed. "The thing that's making the moon purple, of course!" She stopped laughing, noting everyone's expressions and suddenly deciding that she'd prefer to explain things in a more serious manner. "All of the extra powerful magic left over from Moon Drip is being trapped in an imaginary dome around the island, you see. It's hard to spot, because the only visible effect it has is on the moon, which is to make it appear a purplish color. Rare phenomenon such as these have been known to affect the memories of magical creatures. It is because of this, as well as the purple color of the moon, that gives it the name 'Layer of Illusion'... because it makes you perceive things differently than how they actually are."

"Where do you guys learn this stuff?" Happy asked, absolutely befuddled.

"So is that what's making the villagers turn into demons?" Natsu asked, not really understanding the long explanation.

"Sort of," the brunette replied in a quiet voice, smiling secretively.

"But why?" Everyone turned at the sound of Gray's soft, haunted voice. He still sat slouched against the stone, staring at the frozen demon across the room. "Why are they trying to melt Deliora?"

"I don't know," Lynn whispered, frowning.

"What... happened... with you and Deliora, Gray?" Renee asked tentatively, sitting beside him cautiously.

"It was sealed in an iceberg on the Northern Continent," the dark haired boy whispered, holding his head in his hands. "It's an immortal demon that penetrated the Isbin area ten years ago... My magic teacher, Ur, sealed it at the risk of her life."

"I'm so sorry..." Renee muttered quietly, looking at the ground sadly.

"Wait," Lynn said, turning away from Deliora, who she had been studying quietly, and looking back to Gray. "You said that Ur sealed Deliora at the 'risk' of her life, which implies that she didn't actually die..." Gray looked up in surprise at her words, eyes wide. "So what happened to your teacher?"

Gray merely stared at her for a moment, silent, which earned him a "See? I told you she's a genius!" from Kien.

Finally, after a long while, the dark haired boy sighed. "Ur is still alive," he said, standing and walking up to Deliora. Reaching out a hand, he placed it on the ice. "She turned into ice."

Lucy gasped, eyes wide. "That's your teacher? The ice that Deliora's trapped in is Ur?"

"Yes," Gray whispered, nodding slowly, his expression dead serious. "And whoever those people were are trying to melt the ice... melt Ur... and free Deliora."

"There's just one problem with that," Lynn stated, crossing her arms and looking at the ground as though there were something interesting there. "Deliora is dead, Gray. He has been for a long time."

"What?!" the dark haired boy gasped, stumbling backwards and staring at the ginger girl with wide, startled, disbelieving eyes. "Are you sure?! How do you know?!"

"We can sense the magical energy of demons," the fourteen-year-old explained slowly, gesturing to herself and the other Lamia Scale mage. "All demons have an aura, and the stronger the demon is, the greater and more distinctive their aura is. Typically, when a demon dies, their aura lingers around their corpse for a couple of weeks. In a demon as powerful as Deliora's case, however, their aura will remain for a little over a year..."

"And Deliora has not even the slightest trace of an aura," Renee finished, standing up and dusting off her dark grey jean shorts. "There is absolutely no way he isn't dead."

"Ur killed it?" Gray asked quietly, having trouble soaking it all in.

"If it's dead, why are they trying to melt the ice?" Natsu asked, scowling. He was just getting more and more confused as the conversation wore on.

"Simple. They think that Deliora is still alive," Lynn replied, mildly amused.

"Why would they want to melt the ice if they think it's alive?!" Gray cried, shaking his head. "Do they want to die? Do they want mass destruction?!"

"Perhaps. But it's probably much more complicated than that. If they do want Deliora to destroy, it's probably something specific. But who knows… maybe there's some other reason that they want to wake him up. We won't know unless we find out," Lynn reasoned, pacing back and forth along the floor of the vast cavern. All the while Kien was constantly hovering over her shoulder, struggling to keep up with her sudden changes of direction. "I think we should wait here until nightfall, stop the Moon Drip ritual, and figure out what it is, exactly, that they are trying to do here. And while we're at it, we can see who the boss is and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak."

"But it's still broad daylight!" Natsu cried indignantly, not understanding how the ginger girl before him could even suggest such a thing. "I'll die of boredom!"

"Aye," Happy wailed, his expression matching the pink haired boy's almost perfectly.

"Wow," Renee snickered, shaking her head at the pair of them. "Dramatic much?"

Neither Natsu nor his little blue cat thing argued anymore after that, finally seeming to begin to understand that one just couldn't argue with the Lamia Scale mages, especially seeing as they always seemed to be right. So instead, everyone simply fell into a depressed, bored silence for a while, none of them quite sure what to do to pass the time. Gray seemed particularly troubled, which was perfectly understandable, sitting off by himself, facing Deliora with his chin resting on his fists.

After a long while of strained silence, Lucy could bear it no more. She sighed loudly, leaning back on the rock she was sitting on, supporting her weight with her hands. "Even if we agreed to wait… it's boring after all," she declared to Happy, who just so happened to be sitting beside her.

"Aye," the little blue cat responded, half asleep already.

Suddenly the blonde gasped, an idea formulating in her mind. Smiling brightly at her brilliant plan, she removed a silver key from her belt, holding it before her with one hand. "Open! Door to the lyre, Lyra!"

At her words, a young girl with honey blonde hair, dark blue eyes, an old-fashioned blue dress, a pink bonnet, and white angel wings appeared in a puff of smoke, carrying with her an intricate turquoise harp. "Lucy! I haven't seen you in ages!" she squealed, waving happily. "Awww, you only summon me once in a while!"

"Hey," replied Lucy, smiling fondly at her musical stellar spirit. "Sorry, but I can only summon you, like, three days every month, remember?"

"Eh? Is that so?" Lyra gasped, obviously remembering no such thing. "Anyway, what do you want me to sing today?" She sat beside her mistress, holding up her harp and resting her hand on the strings, ready to play.

"Anything. It's your call."

"I want a fish song!" Happy chimed in, giving the stellar spirit a hopeful little cat smile.

Lyra clapped her hands in delight. "Then I'll just sing something! Yay!" She didn't seem to have heard Happy. Either that, or she was ignoring his request.

"Lyra's really good at singing," the blonde Fairy Tail mage girl beamed, looking down at the little blue cat beside her.

"Mira's really good at singing, too. She sings me fish songs."

They both fell silent as Lyra began to play. The melody was soft, sweet, and sorrowful. It filled the cave, echoing all around the companions. After a few moments of nothing but music, the stellar spirit's voice wove its way into the tune; high, clear, and very beautiful.

_"Words are born..._

_Words fade away..._

_Words continue _

_To live in you_

_When you're stuck_

_They change into courage_

_Let's step out_

_You're stronger than back then_

_So don't hesitate_

_Believe the words_

_From that time..."_

Off in his corner, with his back to the rest of the group, Gray sat, trembling. As the last words of Lyra's song faded and fell away, a single tear escaped from his eye. He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep everyone else from noticing.

"Gray?" Lucy asked, watching as he reached up and quickly wiped the water off of his face.

"Huh?" the dark haired boy grunted, turning only halfway to face the blonde. "What's up?"

"He cried..." Happy whispered, shocked. He had never seen Gray like this before, and he wasn't sure what to do.

"I know Lyra's good at singing about people's feelings..." Lucy began, but she was cut off by Renee.

"Shut up, Lucy," she sighed, laying back on a large, flat rock with her hands tucked behind her head. "Leave him alone. He isn't crying... you're mistaken."

"But..."

"Leave it," the brunette cut her off, a little more forcefully this time.

Lucy fell silent, understanding that the Shadow Demon Slayer was just trying to protect Gray's pride. But why did she care so much when she was in an entirely different guild and had never met any of them before then? She might be creepy, but despite that, she was turning out to be a pretty good person. Lucy could deal with the creepiness, if that was the case.

"Can you sing something more cheerful, Lyra?" she asked, deciding to just try to forget the whole thing.

"Ehh? You should have told me to in the first place!" the stellar spirit cried, flustered.

"Wait," Gray said, right as Lyra was about to begin another song. "What will you do if someone comes? Just keep quiet." He looked to Lynn as he said those words, and, since she wasn't objecting, he figured that he must be right.

Gray glanced over at Renee, who was still laying down on the rock only a little ways away, eyes closed. "Thanks," he muttered, giving her a sad little half smile when she opened her eyes.

She smiled back. "I don't know what you're talking about..." she replied, closing her eyes again.

The dark haired boy studied the brunette girl for a little bit longer. She was very confusing. One minute she was nice, and the next she was throwing people at giant monsters. He wasn't sure that he was ever going to understand her, but maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

Sighing heavily, he turned back to face Deliora, wondering what the night would bring.

Lynn hadn't managed to get a wink of sleep in all the time that they'd been waiting for nightfall. Natsu, on the other hand, had passed out immediately, and had been snoring loudly the whole time. Lucy and Happy had both fallen asleep not long after the incident with Gray, and since Lucy had never gotten around to sending Lyra back, the stellar spirit was curled up beside her mistress, cuddling her harp.

Lynn felt a tiny pang of jealousy as she watched them. If only she'd been able to just pass out like that... it would have spared her the boredom of waiting. Looking up through the gap in the ceiling above Deliora, she noted that it was beginning to get dark outside. Finally, she'd be able to do something.

Standing, she brushed off her black and red athletic shorts and stretched, getting her muscles working again. Walking over to Natsu, she crouched down and shook him lightly. "Natsu, wake up." When the teenage Dragon Slayer didn't respond, she shook him even harder. "Natsu!" Still no response. Finally, fed up with the stupid pink haired boy and his stubbornness, she slapped him across the face with a resounding 'smack', which echoed throughout the cave.

Natsu immediately flew up, yelling in alarm and sending a stream of fire shooting at the ginger girl. Opening her mouth wide, she sucked it all in, licking her lips afterwards.

"That was delicious," she said, smiling sweetly at the bewildered pink haired boy. "Thanks for the dinner, I was getting hungry."

"Why'd you hit me?!" he cried, totally awake now and waking up everyone else in the process. "You wanna fight?!"

"No," she replied evenly, placing her hands on her hips. "You wouldn't wake up. Hitting you was my only available option."

Renee laughed from across the cave, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. Apparently she had been asleep, too. "I'm sure it was, sis."

"The moon'll be out soon," Gray commented, sighing. He was in the exact same position he'd been in all day; sitting against a rock away from everyone else, facing Deliora. "We should all be ready when it is."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Renee replied, hopping up and cracking her neck, back, and knuckles. "Finally, we'll have some action!"

"You can say that again!" Natsu grinned, giving the brunette a high five. He turned back to Lynn. "Hey, I'm hungry too! Can I have some of your fire now?"

"Sure." The ginger girl held out a hand in front of her. Moments later, bright golden flames were springing up from the palm of her hand.

"They're gold," the pink haired boy commented, cocking his head to the side curiously. "Cool!" Reaching for the flame, he recoiled the moment his hand touched it. "It's hot!" he cried, shocked. "That actually burned me!"

Lucy gasped. "You burned Natsu?" she asked, running up to examine the boy's hand. It looked perfectly fine, but Natsu was biting his lip in pain. "How? I thought that Natsu could eat any flame but his own."

Lynn shrugged. "I guess not. Sorry for burning you." She looked genuinely upset, and vaguely troubled. "I wouldn't have offered them to you if I'd known that this would happen."

"Of course you wouldn't have," Natsu replied, grinning. "You may be a know-it-all, but I know that you wouldn't hurt somebody on purpose without a good reason."

"Thanks?" the redhead replied, not entirely sure how to respond to the compliment paired with an insult.

"Well... it looks like you're going to have to go hungry like the rest of us," Gray shrugged, standing and casually putting his hands in his jean pockets. "Minus those two." He jerked his thumb at Lynn and Renee, who was busy gobbling up the shadow of one of the many piles of debris.

Happy was just about to say something when suddenly, a bright beam of purple light shot down from the hole in the ceiling and hit Deliora. "The Moon Drip ritual has started!" the little blue cat cried, alarmed.

"We need to get up there and find out exactly what's going on," Lynn stated, jogging to the cave entrance and gesturing for the others to follow her.

"Yeah! Come on, you lazy humans!" Kien cried from her shoulder, bouncing up and down with excitement.

The other four mages and the cat looked at each other before following the fourteen-year-old and her demon friend out into the jungle. The night air was thick, moist, and warm, but oddly refreshing. Lynn looked back to make sure that everyone was keeping up, then she ran up the old stone steps to her right, into a more stable, covered part of the ruins from earlier that day.

Entering the crumbling building behind the redhead, Gray saw that the beam of purple moonlight passed through the room from a hole in the ceiling to the one in the ground above Deliora. None of them paused to look, instead following Lynn up another set of stairs across the room, which led outside to the top of the ruin. The group crouched low as they made their way up the grassy hill to the source of the light, trying to keep from being spotted. Pretty soon, a low humming could be heard, which grew louder and louder as they neared the place where the Moon Drip ritual was being held.

Lynn hid behind a large piece of rubble, slowly peeking her head out so that she could see what was going on. A large circle of purple-robed cultists stood around the beam of magical light, chanting. She watched as a tall figure walked slowly down one of the ruin's stone paths towards the ritual grounds, flanked by the three teenagers from the cave earlier that day. He wore a long, billowing, blue fur-lined cape and a metal, horned helmet. He carried himself with an imposing, commanding bearing. Lynn could only assume that he was the one behind the entire operation.

"Ugh," muttered the short, blue haired boy behind him, rubbing his eyes. "I was awake during the day, so now I'm sleepy."

"Ooon," replied the dog boy beside him. Of course. What else would he say?

"We couldn't find the intruders, either," Yuuka continued, sighing heavily. He really did seem tired... Lynn almost felt sorry for him. But she was tired too, so he could just suck it up.

"You're sure there were some?" yelled Toby, exploding into yet another fit of unnecessary rage.

"I have sad news, Reitei," Sherry said, frowning as she spoke to her leader. "There were intruders during the daytime... but we let them get away. I cannot speak of love like this."

"Good grief," whispered Renee, rolling her eyes. Lynn silenced her sister with a fierce glare, jerking her head towards the speakers. She ought to have known better than to speak.

Sighing, the brunette melted into the shadows beneath their feet. Lynn suspected that she was going to get a better view of what was going on. Good.

"Intruders..." muttered the leader, Reitei. His voice was light, quiet, but somehow intimidating at the same time. Gray, who was the one beside Lynn now that her sister had left, gasped when he heard it.

The ginger glanced at him curiously. He obviously knew who this Reitei was, but how? What more of a connection could the dark haired boy possibly have to the events transpiring on the mysterious island?

"Isn't Deliora revived yet?" the masked man demanded, not even looking at his subordinates. He spoke with a haughty and impatient tone. Lynn was liking him less and less as her eavesdropping continued.

"Probably today or tomorrow," his pink haired admirer replied, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Which is it?!" Toby barked, light brown eyes practically flaming with his sudden burst of anger.

"We're almost there..." Reitei chuckled, a thin, evil smile creeping its way onto his face. Gray's eyes were glued to him, his face locked in a horrified, disbelieving expression. "About the intruders, I don't want anyone to get in the way now."

"I understand," Sherry said softly, nodding her head obediently.

"Only the village on the other end of the island has humans there," the masked man continued, gesturing in the direction of the town. "Go and obliterate it."

"Yes, sir!"

"Roger!"

"Ooon!"

The three teenage followers took off in the direction of the village, determined to please their master. Natsu growled and started to get up, but Lynn quickly pulled him back down, covering his mouth with her hand. "Okay. Listen up, guys," she whispered, getting the attention of their little group. Renee popped her head out of a shadow on the ground to indicate that she was listening, the darkness rolling off of the edges of her face where the rest of her body transitioned to shadow. Lucy recoiled, barely holding back a shriek of alarm. "Here's the plan. We wait for the three of them to get out of earshot, then Lucy, Renee, and I go after them. Natsu and Gray will stay here to interrogate Reitei. Find out what he wants with Deliora." Gray, nodded, gulping as he tried to keep his wits about him. "Good. Lucy, you go after the girl, I go after the stupid dog boy, and Renee will take care of the eyebrow guy. Are we clear?" Everyone nodded. Lynn smiled, waiting for the three teenagers to disappear from view. "Go!"

At her order, Natsu leaped from her grip and landed atop the piece of stone that they had been hiding behind, letting out a tremendous burst of flame from his lungs. Gray followed less conspicuously, vaulting over the rubble and falling into a defensive stance.

Lynn, Renee, and Lucy didn't stick around to see what would happen next, instead dashing off into the jungle in search of the would-be terrorists.

Lynn caught up with Toby pretty quickly, jumping up into the air and kicking him to the ground. Glancing around in the time that she had before he got back up, neither of his friends were anywhere to be seen. So for whatever reason, they'd split up. Good.

The ginger girl snapped back to attention as the dog boy got to his feet, shaking his head to clear it. Once he could see straight, he gasped. "Lynn?!" he cried, so shocked that his ears almost flew off. "What are you doing here?!"

"I could ask the same of you, Toby," Lynn replied evenly, narrowing her eyes at her old idiot of a friend.

"Oh no," Toby wailed, eyes darting about the shadows frantically. "Where's Renee?! You guys aren't going to kill me, are you?!"

"Why does it matter where my sister is? She's not here," the ginger girl replied, annoyed.

The dog boy breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Okay, that's fine then. Get out of my way, Lynn. I've got something to do."

"Like what?! Destroy a village and all of the people in it?" Lynn hissed, glaring daggers at him. "No way."

"Come on! Don't make me hurt you, Lynn!" Toby yelled, losing his grip on his temper and his patience.

"As if you could," the redhead scoffed, crossing her arms defiantly.

"Fine, have it your way. I don't care if you used to be my nakama! If you get in my way, you die!" With those words, he charged, swiping at her with his sickly green nails.

Lynn dodged relatively easily, trying to recall the effects of Toby's 'magic'. From what she could remember, if his claws touched you, you would instantly be electrocuted and paralyzed. Best to stay out of his reach, then.

Jumping backwards, she put a hand on her forehead. "I hate to interrupt your viciously attacking me, Toby, but you've got something on your face here."

"Huh?" Toby reached up to the spot on his forehead that she had indicated and scratched. "Here?" Lynn nodded, a smile slowly creeping its way onto her face. "Thanks! Ooon, it would've been embarrassing if-" The dog boy's words were cut off when he was suddenly zapped with a jolt of electricity. His muscles locked, and he fell over onto the ground, defeated.

Lynn laughed, shaking her head. "Toby, you never learn. I've beat you this way three times already!"

"Ooon," he muttered weakly, unable to really say much of anything else.

Lynn waved before heading off into the woods again. "Sorry! I'd love to catch up, but I've got a blondie to save!"

Renee watched as the thick-eyebrowed, blue haired boy walked in the shadows beneath the trees, completely unaware of her presence. Once she had judged that he was far enough away from his comrades, she spoke. "Where do you think you're going, Yuuka?"

The mage's head snapped up immediately, and he looked around the shadows with his piercing gaze, trying to pinpoint where her voice was coming from. "Renee? Where are you?" he whispered, standing casually with his hands in his pockets. "Why don't you come out where I can see you? It's been so long since we've spoken..."

He didn't even flinch when the brunette suddenly rose out of the ground before him, wreathed in darkness. "You're right, it has been a while," she said, smiling grimly. "When we were in Lamia Scale together, I'd never imagined that we would one day be fighting against each other."

"So you were the intruders?" Yuuka asked, shaking his head sadly. "You and Lynn? Why are you here?"

"We were hired by the villagers to break the curse that's making them turn into demons. Incidentally, that makes you guys our enemies," Renee replied, sighing. She wasn't at all happy with the way things had turned out. "Why are you trying to revive Deliora?"

"Reitei wants to fight it and defeat it in order to surpass his teacher," Yuuka shrugged, seeing nothing wrong with divulging this information with his old friend.

Renee laughed, causing the short boy in front of her to frown slightly. "Seriously, that's it? Well tell him that it's pointless, cause Deliora is dead."

The blue haired boy stared at her hard for a long moment, completely silent. Finally, his expression softened. "I believe you," he sighed heavily. "But Reitei won't. Therefore, I must continue with my mission."

"Please don't," the brunette pleaded, getting increasingly frustrated with her friend's stubborn behavior. "If you do, we'll have to fight, and you and I both know I'll win. Just go to your boss and tell him that it's pointless. I don't want to hurt you."

"That's not an option. As I said, he won't listen. This has been his dream for too long, and I cannot go back unless I have either completed my mission or been beaten in battle. We must fight."

"Gosh, Yuuka. Why do you always have to be so stubborn? Seriously," Renee sighed, falling into a fighting stance. "Fine. Let's get this over with."

Without further ado, Yuuka pointed his right arm at the girl, keeping the other behind his back. "Surge," he commanded, causing a wave of power to come speeding towards Renee, warping the air around it as it moved.

The brunette crouched, vaulting up and over the invisible wall with ease. Landing on one of the upper branches of a nearby tree, she stretched out a hand and began to write on the air. Wavering black letters appeared rapidly in the air before her, forming a tangible, disk-shaped rune.

Grabbing the disk, she leaped off of the tree and to the ground as her opponent sent another surge of power at her, reducing the branches in its wake to splinters.

"Shadow Bind!" Renee called as she stuck the circular rune to the ground, pointing at Yuuka, who now stood several yards away. At her command, nine shadowy hands burst from the disk, rushing towards their target at top speed.

Yuuka stumbled back a step, sending another wall of power at the hands. He growled in frustration when nothing happened, jumping out of the way just as they reached the place where he'd been standing until that point.

"Ha!" the anti-mage boy laughed. "You're going to have to do better than tha-" He didn't get to finish, because suddenly he was pulled down by some unseen force, slamming into the ground below. Yuuka struggled to try and stand, but his body wouldn't move.

"Don't bother struggling," Renee told him, walking over and crouching beside him. She tilted her head so that he could see her face from his position on the ground. "Those hands were never aiming for you, Yuuka. Shadow Bind is an enchantment meant to do exactly as the name suggests... trap your shadow."

"Sneaky," Yuuka muttered, his voice strained. He felt a little like an idiot. Why hadn't he thought of that? Not that the outcome would have been any different, anyway.

Renee laughed. "What else do you expect from a shadow demon slayer?" Not waiting for a reply, she promptly kicked him in the temple, knocking him out. "Sorry, Yuuka," she whispered, staring down at his unconscious form, "but you're the one who got yourself into this mess."

With that she turned on her heel, heading back to the ruins where they'd left Natsu and Gray.

"Wood Doll!" Sherry cried, pointing at the large, old tree behind Lucy. The bark immediately twisted in on itself, forming three gaping holes in the trunk that resembled eyes and a mouth. There was a loud creaking sound as the tree unrooted itself from the ground like a person trying to stand after sitting for a long period of time.

Lucy paled as she watched it, disbelieving. "The tree... moved?" she gasped, as though trying to make sense of the situation.

She dove out of the way as the tree puppet swung one of its thick branches at her, barely missing and creating a large crater in the dirt where the blonde had been standing only moments before. She whipped out a golden key as the dust cleared, raising it high in the air. "Open! Door to the bull, Taurus!"

There was an explosion of smoke, in the middle of which a giant, fierce-looking cow man wielding a massive battle axe suddenly appeared. He swung his axe around his head and at the tree, easily chopping it clean in half. It crashed to the ground with a deafening boom, causing Lucy to stumble a bit.

"Stellar spirit magic?" Sherry gasped, watching the scene from a distance. "On top of that, the ecliptic zodiac?!"

"Great job, Taurus!" Lucy cheered, clapping happily.

"Mooo!" Tauros replied, raising his axe high above his head. "Lucy's tits are the best!"

"Making a stellar spirit say that... and even enjoying it... that's highly indecent!" Sherry commented, shaking her head in disgust.

"I didn't make him say that, and I'm not enjoying it!" the blonde girl shrieked, insulted.

"Mooo," added Tauros.

"But stellar spirit mages are unfortunate to meet with me," the pink haired girl stated, smiling smugly.

Lucy, not caring enough to hear her out, pointed. "Go, Tauros!"

The oversized, well-muscled bull man charged towards Sherry head-on, raising his axe and letting loose a terrifying battle cry. Then suddenly, halfway to his target, he stopped and turned back towards his mistress. Without warning, he attacked, ramming his massive weapon into the ground a mere inch away from Lucy.

The blonde dove away just before he swung again, narrowly avoiding being hit. "Hey, Tauros!" she screamed, looking back at her stellar spirit in shock. "What's going on?!"

She let out a strangled gasp as the bull man's beefy hand grabbed her by the throat, slamming her painfully into the ground and knocking the wind out of her.

"Lucy... I can't control my body..." Tauros groaned, obviously struggling even to speak.

"My magic, Doll Play Attack, has the power to control anything but humans," Sherry laughed, delighting in Lucy's pain and confusion. "That applies to stellar spirits as well, since they're not human."

"This... can't be..." Lucy gasped, struggling to breathe.

"Tauros, please go ahead and strip her," the cruel pink haired girl commanded, still laughing.

"My pleasure!" the cow man cried excitedly, tearing at Lucy's shirt.

"Are you really... being controlled?" the blonde asked, panicking. "Close! A door to the bull!" she screamed, desperate to free herself. Nothing happened.

"Don't you open and close the stellar spirit gates upon both parties' agreement? You cannot close it one-sidedly," Sherry pointed out matter-of-factly, slowly walking towards the other girl. "So Fairy Tail mages are only at this level, after all."

Lucy ground her teeth angrily at those last words. She could take a lot of things, but she would not stand for insulting Fairy Tail. Clenching her eyes shut, she focused with all of her might. "Close! A gate to the bull!" And it worked. Tauros vanished, leaving the blonde lying on the jungle floor, with nothing on her upper half other than a black sports bra.

"What?!" Sherry gasped, taken aback. "I... I didn't imagine that a mage would do such a thing! I've miscalculated..."

"I'm growing..." the blonde whispered to herself, standing and staring at the back of her right hand, where her Fairy Tail symbol was. She smiled and took out her whip, speaking up so that her pink haired opponent could hear. "Yup! I'm a Fairy Tail mage, too! This match starts now!"

The pink haired girl across the way smirked, regaining her composure after her initial shock. "Just don't forget... your stellar spirits won't work on me."

"Let's see..." Lucy muttered, ignoring her words and holding up a silver key. "I still have many other stellar spirits. Open! Door to the lesser dog, Plue!"

Holding out her hand, Sherry twiddled her fingers at the small white creature that had just appeared and cried, "Doll play attack! Puppeteer!"

At her words, Plue's tiny dark eyes immediately glazed over and he turned 'menacingly' towards Lucy. With all of the speed his short little legs could carry him, he charged the blonde and started pummeling her leg. However, the miniature snowman's fists didn't seem to be doing any harm.

Sherry gasped as Lucy smirked, cranking back her arm. "You fell for it!" she yelled triumphantly, slashing her opponent's leg with a resounding crack.

"Darn!" Sherry muttered, cursing herself for her stupidity. "Small fry stellar spirit. Cancel manipulation!" Plue's eyes returned to normal and he poofed back to the celestial realm. "Doll play attack! Rock doll!"

"It's useless. My stellar spirit will break it," Lucy smirked, her hand hovering above the keys on her belt.

The ground rumbled and shook as boulders collided together, creating a massive rock giant that had to be at least as big as the blue mouse they encountered earlier, if not bigger.

"Break it? You mean this rock?" Sherry asked, laughing maniacally.

"Rock?" Lucy stammered, petrified, as a giant hand came crashing down, barely missing her.

"ROCK!" the blonde shrieked, stumbling down the hill as fast as she could. The puppet chased after her, Sherry on its shoulder, each footstep causing the earth to tremble violently. The jungle soon dispersed and a sandy beach took its place, leaving Lucy with nowhere to run.

"I can call Aquarius here..." the blonde muttered to herself as she fell to her knees, exhausted, "but... I can't break rock with water."

Standing, she started to pull out a golden zodiac key, only to freeze mid-action when she heard someone call her name from a distance. "Lucy! What have you gotten yourself into?"

"Lynn!" Lucy called back immediately, recognizing her voice and breathing a sigh of relief.

"Don't worry," Lynn replied, suddenly bursting from the line of trees. Reaching her blonde companion, she pivoted to face the monster, kicking up a spray of sand in the process. "I can take care of of this crazy chick myself."

"Beat her to a pulp!" Kien cheered as its human friend dug her heels into the ground, bracing herself.

"You're awfully confident, aren't you?" Sherry chimed, frowning with mock hurt. "Underestimating me isn't going to get you anywhere, you know."

A rock arm propelled towards the ginger without warning, aiming for her head. Lynn stood her ground, waiting for the right time to jump, then landed squarely on the monster's palm. "There's a trick to marionette wizards, you know..." she stated calmly, dashing up the rough surface towards Sherry.

"What are you doing? Get her!" the pink haired girl shrieked, pointing frantically at the rapidly approaching fourteen-year-old. The doll arched it's other arm at the demon slayer, missing her entirely. Instead, the arm crumbled with the impact, sending Lucy running to avoid the falling rocks below.

"...make the puppets do the dirty work!" Lynn finished, reaching the shoulder that a shocked Sherry was standing on. Not wasting another second, the ginger set her foot blazing with golden flame and kicked the bewildered pink haired girl just below the jaw, sending her flying back into the jungle.

Sherry's screams were abruptly cut off when her skull slammed painfully into the solid trunk of a tree, knocking her out instantly. She crumpled to the ground, her body rolling a little ways down the hill before it came to a stop in a clump of bushes.

"Watch out!" Lucy cried, seeing that the rock below Lynn was starting to collapse, lifeless. Kien immediately swallowed its friend to protect her from the fall, not needing to be told twice. Once the ginger girl was safely in its stomach, it tumbled to the ground, some of the larger rocks falling on top of it.

Lynn and Kien were thoroughly buried by the time the puppet had finished crumbling, trapped in a mound of heavy stone. Lucy had just begun to wonder if she should help them when hot, searing orange flames burst through the cracks in the rubble, blasting a hole through the rocks big enough for Lynn to crawl out of, unscathed. Her demon friend floated back to its usual place on her shoulder moments later, once again its normal, minuscule size.

"That was fun!" the ginger girl giggled, picking her way down the pile of rocks and making her way towards Lucy. "It's been a while since I've faced a marionette mage."

"Yeah..."Lucy replied, looking at the younger girl strangely. "Fun. So what do we do now?"

Lynn thought for a moment, tilting her head towards the sky so that she could see the purple moon high above them. "We should probably go check on Natsu and Gray," she finally decided, looking back at the blonde. "Renee's probably there by now, too."

Lucy nodded, and the two of them ran off into the jungle with Kien in tow, leaving Sherry and her broken rock doll behind.


	3. Chapter 3

"Why did you send your lackeys to destroy the village?!" Natsu roared, having just leaped atop the pile of rubble that he had been hiding behind previously, Gray at his side. He let out another burst of flame into the sky, his rage boiling over.

The mysterious masked man stared at him in mild surprise for a moment before speaking. "They hired you, did they not?" he asked, his icy voice dangerously low. "Anyone who attempts to stand in our way is an enemy."

At his words, Gray finally burst, charging towards Reitei at top speed. "You!" he cried, his words overflowing with bitterness and anger. "Stop that useless ritual!" With that, he slammed his hands on the ground before him, sending a long, wide

line of ice spikes speeding towards the masked man, getting larger as they went.

Reitei reacted quickly, kneeling down and placing a hand of his own on the ground. Just like the dark haired boy before him, he sent an identical line of ice spikes shooting up from the floor in the opposite direction. The two deadly traps met in the middle, sending frozen shards flying in all directions.

"He uses ice, too?!" Happy gasped from the sidelines, shocked.

"Leon..." Gray growled, glaring hard at the boy in the mask. "Do you understand what you're trying to do here?"

"Eh?" Natsu huffed, now thoroughly confused. "What's going on here?" He was ignored.

"It's been a long time, Gray," Leon said, as cold as the ice magic he used. "I never imagined that the mage the townspeople sent would be you. Did you know about this, or is it just a coincidence? Oh well. It doesn't matter."

"Shut up!" Natsu yelled, rushing his nakama's old acquaintance with a flaming fist. "Just stop talking about things that don't make any sense and fight already!"

"Natsu! Don't move!" Gray called out to his companion, whirling around. But it was too late.

The moment the pink haired boy got within fifteen feet of Leon, he froze into a solid ball of ice. "I can't move!" he cried, struggling to break free of his crystallized prison. Gray looked back at the frustrated dragon slayer and, without a word, kicked the ice. Slowly, Natsu began to roll, picking up speed as he went down the hill. "What the heck are you doing, Gray?!" The dark haired boy didn't respond, instead turning back to Leon with a dead set expression on his face.

"You're still so reckless," commented the masked, cloaked boy, watching as the dragon slayer zoomed down the hill, into the trees, and out of sight. "Isn't he your nakama?"

"That's the ice magic that can destroy the body along with the ice, isn't it?" Gray muttered darkly, glaring daggers at his opponent.

"I see. That's why you put him somewhere my magic can't reach. Good job."

"Stop acting like you're my senior, Leon," Gray hissed, seething. "You're not Ur's student anymore."

"Same goes for you, Gray," Leon replied cooly, removing his masked helmet. "Ur isn't alive anymore." He cast the helmet aside, revealing a pale, narrow face, dark eyes, and a head full of spiky, snow-white hair.

"She lost her life in order to seal Deliora! You're trying to destroy what Ur left us!"

"Do not fool your memory, Gray," Leon hissed, narrowing his eyes at the dark haired boy. "You killed Ur. How can you live like that?"

Gray knew that it wasn't true, that she was still alive... but he couldn't tell him. He'd promised. Besides, Leon was right, in a way. What had happened to Ur was his fault... but he couldn't let him get under his skin so easily.

"It's presumptuous enough to even mention your name," Leon continued, aiming the flat of his palm at the dark haired boy. A moment later, a beam of ice shot from his hand, hitting its target full on in the chest.

Gray flew backwards, crashing into a piece of rubble. He struggled to stand, glaring viciously at his foe as he did so.

"What's wrong? Do you feel too guilty to counterattack? If that's the case, I'll ask you not to get in the way. I'll revive Deliora," Leon drawled, unmoving.

"No, you won't," Gray retorted, falling back into another defensive position.

The white haired boy raised an eyebrow, amused by what he assumed was merely his childhood friend's stubbornness. "Oh? And what's to stop me?" he asked, tilting his head ever so slightly to the side. "You? Don't make me laugh."

"That isn't what I meant. Deliora is dead. You're wasting your time."

Leon gasped, completely caught off guard for a moment. He obviously hadn't expected such an answer. He simply stood like that for a moment, staring at Gray in shock. Then he laughed. "Trying to trick me now, are you?" he asked, shaking his head wonderingly. "It won't work. Nothing is going to stop me from reviving Deliora!"

"I tried to tell you," Gray growled, continuing to glare at the frustrating boy in front of him, "but it looks like I'm going to have to do this the hard way."

"That's the spirit," Leon mocked, smirking. "Let's have a match. It's been a while." Raising a hand, he pointed towards Gray once again. "Ice make! Eagle!" At his words, a dozen or so frozen birds materialized in the air around him, flying at the target with tremendous speed.

"Ice make! Shield!" Gray commanded, throwing both of his hands up in front of him. A large, glossy, perfectly symmetrical wall of ice sprouted from his palms like a flower, rapidly expanding until the dark haired boy's front was completely protected.

"You're good at molding materials. 'Static' ice make," Leon observed, watching as his creations neared their prey. "My ice make is a living thing... 'dynamic' ice make. Did you forget that ice moves around?"

As the white haired boy spoke those words, the eagles reached Gray and his shield, wrapping around it to attack from behind. Just before they hit him, however, they shattered, exploding into miniature showers of freezing crystals. The shards of ice fell to the ground at Gray's feet, completely harmless.

Leon looked on in shock and confusion. "What did you do?" he asked, but the dark haired boy was just as confused as he.

"Your ice is alive, hmm?" asked a flippant female voice, which seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. "Fabulous. That works out wonderfully."

"Who are you?!" Leon asked, looking around semi-frantically. "What do you want?!" Gray smiled slightly, recognizing the voice of the brunette from Lamia Scale. He had gotten lucky, with her showing up at such a time.

He watched as a shadowy figure slowly rose behind the bewildered Leon, the darkness rolling off of her pale skin like mist. "My name is Renee," she said with a smile, causing the white haired boy to whirl around in surprise. "And I'm here to help Gray. Does that answer your questions?"

"What... what are you?" Leon asked, tilting his head to the side as he stared at her.

"You know, I'd really like to be all cheesy right now and say 'your worst nightmare' or something like that, but let's just settle for 'a shadow demon slayer' today."

"It's nighttime," Leon pointed out, unimpressed now that he was over his initial shock.

Renee laughed, walking around the white haired boy to stand beside Gray. "I know. That's why it'll be impossible for you to beat me. Well... it would probably be impossible no matter what, actually."

"You're awfully cocky," Leon snorted, holding a hand out towards her. "Very well, let's fight. Ice make! Eagle!" Immediately, another flock of angry, frozen birds charged towards the pair, this time slightly faster than before.

Renee smirked, but besides that, didn't move a muscle. "Shadow puppet. Wolves." At her quiet words, seven canine shapes sprouted from her shadow. They were dark and flat against the ground, like regular shadows, and the only things to differentiate them from such were their eyes, which glowed purple, and the fact that they weren't attached to any actual wolves. The pack surged forward to intercept Leon's eagles, viciously attacking their shadows. As the shadows died, so did the birds, exploding into shards of ice as they had before. Once their task was completed, the wolves ran back to their mistress, merging into her shadow once again.

Gray decided to attack next, before Leon could again. "Ice make! Hammer!" he cried, pounding his right fist on his left palm and aiming at the other boy. A giant hammer promptly manifested in the air above Leon's head, preparing to swing.

Looking up, the white haired boy pointed towards the colossal weapon with two fingers. "Ice make. Ape."

Just before the hammer fell, an even more massive gorilla appeared, crossing its arms above its head to stop the blow. Both creations shattered on impact, their fragments falling to the ground all around Leon.

"You're pathetic," the white haired boy stated, gazing condescendingly at Gray. "You're still using both hands for molding magic."

"It's Ur's teaching," the dark haired boy replied, standing beside and slightly in front of Renee. "One-handed molding is incomplete and not balanced."

"I'm special. I surpassed Ur's power long ago."

Renee stared at him, shaking her head incredulously. "If you really believe that, why are you trying to revive Deliora and surpass Ur by defeating him?"

"That's your reason?!" Gray cried, furious. "That's why you're trying to revive Deliora?!" The white haired boy ignored him, instead gaping at the brunette beside him.

"How do you know about that?!" Leon hissed, glaring at her hostily.

"I beat up one of your buddies earlier," she replied, shrugging. "I'm not going to say which one, though."

"Fine. It doesn't matter, either way," Leon glowered, pointing towards her. "Ice make-"

"Ice make! Geyser!" Gray interrupted, planting both of his hands on the ground. Great, thick pillars of ice shot up all around the white haired boy before he could finish, encasing him inside.

He was only like that for a few moments before the ice shattered, blowing into billions of pieces. "Ice make! Dragon!"

There was a loud rumbling as the ground shook violently, disrupting the cultists carrying out the Moon Drip ritual and sending small pieces of debris tumbling down the grassy hillside. Then, all of a sudden, a gigantic sculpted dragon burst from the ground, rising high above the two mages below. It dove down and snatched up Gray before either of them could react, throwing him up into the air and opening its jaws to swallow him whole.

"Mist make! Owl!" Renee cried, stretching both of her arms out in Gray's general direction. Just as he was about to fall into the mouth of the dragon, a giant, graceful bird made of mist snatched him out of the air, gently setting him on the ground beside the brunette. The owl vanished the moment the dark haired boy's feet touched the ground, as though it had never been there in the first place.

"You..." Gray sputtered, staring at the girl next to him. "You have creation magic, too?"

"What?!" Leon whispered at the same time, equally as shocked.

Renee simply smirked at the both of them before turning back to the dragon, writing rapidly on the air. Immediately snatching the disk she had created, she slapped it on the ground and pointed at the ice beast, shouting, "Shadow bind!"

Just like in her previous fight with Yuuka, nine shadowy hands shot out of the rune, reaching for the dragon. At the same time, Leon's creation dove forward, lunging at the brunette with its mouth wide open, fangs glinting brightly in the light of the purple moon. It froze a mere foot away from the girl, no longer able to move.

Hearing a noise behind them, Renee turned to look. Gray's gaze followed hers immediately after, wondering who it was. Lynn was pelting up the hillside towards them, Kien struggling to keep up. Lucy was nowhere to be seen.

"Lynn! I was wondering when you'd show up!" Renee laughed, delighted to see her little sister. "Did it really take that long for you to beat that idiot?"

"No," the ginger girl replied, mildly insulted. "I decided to go ahead and give Lucy a hand. She was having trouble."

"Speaking of Lucy..." Gray began, looking around as if expecting to see the blonde. "Where is she?"

"We found Natsu in the woods," Lynn stated dismissively, waving a hand in the dark haired boy's direction. "She stayed behind to listen to his ranting. So what's the situation?" She nodded her head towards the nearly-forgotten Leon with the last sentence. "Let me guess. He's an ice magic user, he and Gray have some sort of history likely involving Ur and Deliora, you've trapped the dragon with your shadow bind technique, and he has a 'chill' spell in place about the area."

At her words, Leon turned as white as a sheet, his face drained of all color. "How did you...?" he stuttered, unable to finish his sentence.

"Let's see..." the ginger drawled, obviously relishing her superior intellect. "I know that you use ice magic because of the dragon, I know that you and Gray have a history because of his reaction to first hearing your voice, the fact that you both use ice magic, the fact that you're both around the same age, and from the expressions on your faces, the shadow bind is painfully obvious, considering I've seen it at least a hundred times before, and the chill magic would explain why Natsu is currently in a giant ball of extra sturdy ice at the bottom of the hill."

"Show off," Renee snorted, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes.

"Now to deal with that spell..." Lynn muttered, smirking and holding a hand out in front of her, writing on the air. It took her a few seconds, but pretty soon she had written out a word in glowing white letters. "Solid script! Dispel!" she commanded, sending the spell drifting towards Leon and the dragon. Once it had gotten within fifteen feet of him, it exploded in a shower of snow flakes and mint green sparks, which slowly dissipated into nothingness. That done, Lynn waltzed up to join the rest of the crowd.

"You just erased my spell..." Leon whispered, not really able to wrap his head around all of the recent events.

"Hmph. I'll do more than that!" the ginger declared, facing the immobile ice dragon. Jumping into the air high above the thing's head, she inhaled as much oxygen as she possibly could. "Fire demon's roar!" she yelled, unleashing a torrent of intensely hot golden flames at the beast below. It was instantly vaporized, unable to react to the attack under the influence of shadow bind.

"Seriously?" Renee scowled, turning away from her sister indignantly. "I did all of the work here. All you did was pop out of nowhere and show off." Gray chuckled lowly from the side, in a kind of daze. "So, Leon," Renee continued, looking back at the white haired boy. "Do you surrender yet?"

"You..." Leon seethed, staring intensely at the brunette, his eyes alight with hatred and barely contained rage. "If you hadn't showed up, none of this would have happened!" He seemed less and less stable as he went on speaking. "Just die!"

With those last words, he exploded, letting loose a wave of power that froze everything it touched. The cultists behind him cowered in fear, and the three mages opposite him backed up a few steps. "Mist make! Bubble!" Renee cried before the frost reached them, extending one of her arms towards Gray, and the other towards Lynn. They were both immediately enveloped in foggy, wobbling orbs, lifting off of the ground and hovering in the air a few feet above where they'd previously been standing. The jagged, icy spikes of Leon's power shot up at an alarming rate just moments later. They didn't extend high enough to reach Gray and Lynn, but they did reach the brunette on the ground, impaling her easily.

Leon laughed maniacally as he watched, certain that he had killed her.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked, perfectly fine despite the three elongated shards of ice that were sticking out of her body. "Physical attacks like that are useless against me, you know," she pointed out, stepping slowly towards the dumbfounded white haired boy. The spikes jutting out of the ground passed through her as easily as they would through water, leaving not even a single scratch in their place. "I am, after all, a shadow."

"How?!" Leon cried, slowly backing away as the shadow demon slayer drew closer. "How is anyone supposed to beat you, then?"

"They're not," Renee replied, stopping while she was still a ways away from the white haired boy. "I've never been beaten before, and it is highly unlikely that I ever will be. The same goes for my sister." She paused, writing all too familiar runes on the air. "Now..." she began, grabbing the disk and placing it on the ground at her feet. "Shadow bind."

"Sorry, Natsu," Lucy apologized for the hundredth time, wiping her arm on her forehead. "But I really don't think that blasting fire out of it is going to do anything..."

"But I don't wanna be stuck in this stuff forever!" the pink haired boy barked, glaring at his blonde friend in frustration.

He'd been frozen solid for only ten minutes or so when he'd run into Lynn and Lucy earlier. They'd tried everything; burning, melting, smashing... but nothing seemed to work. They hadn't even chipped the ice. Lucy chuckled half heartedly, at a loss for what to do. "Trust me, I don't want you to be stuck in there forever, either." No sooner had she spoken than the ice vanished, causing Natsu to lose his balance and fall over into the dirt.

"Natsu! Are you okay?" cried Happy, walking over to pat his friend's cheek.

The delighted pink haired boy immediately shot up high into the air, a huge grin on his face. "I'm free!" he declared, grabbing his cat friend and throwing him up onto his head. "I don't know what happened, but I'm free!"

"Heheh, yeah," Lucy laughed, smiling as she watched Natsu celebrate. "I guess this means that Gray, Lynn, and Renee defeated that Reitei, huh?" The pink haired boy suddenly froze at her words, his expression outraged.

"They fought him without me?!" he fumed, stomping around in a circle and glaring at the trees as though he expected his fellow mages to come out of them at any moment. "Oh yeah! Gray kicked me down the hill after I got trapped in the ice!" Finishing his ranting, he plopped down onto the dirt, nearly causing Happy to fall off of his head. "I'm gonna kill that jerk."

"You're going to kill who?" asked a familiar voice from their left, as well as the sound of several people picking their way through the bushes. Lucy, Natsu, and Happy all turned around simultaneously to see Lynn, Renee, Gray, and Kien coming towards them through the dense jungle.

"Gray!" Natsu yelled the moment he saw him, getting up immediately and taking a flying leap at his face. The dark haired boy merely caught his foot, twisted it, and sent him crashing to the ground once again.

"I'm tired, Natsu. I don't feel like fighting right now," Gray sighed, leaning against a tree once he had fully entered the clearing that the other two had parked themselves in. Slowly, he sunk to the ground, closing his eyes and resting his head against the rough bark.

Lucy looked concerned, but didn't say anything regarding the ice mage, instead turning to speak to Lynn. "You defeated him?" she asked the ginger, receiving a smile and a nod in response. "So what do we do now?"

"Well," the fourteen year old replied, her tiny smile vanishing. "We'll destroy the moon as planned, but first we have to deal with this guy." She gestured to Renee, who had just unceremoniously dumped Leon's unconscious body onto the ground.

"Eek!" shrieked Lucy, leaping back when she saw the white-haired boy, apparently not having noticed him before.

"Why are you so surprised?" Gray chuckled, shaking his head. "You didn't think we'd just leave him there, did you?"

"Yeah... we kind of still need to convince him to stop trying to revive Deliora," Renee laughed, plopping herself down on the ground not far from Gray, laying back on the moss with her hands tucked behind her head. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say that guy was as stubborn as you, Kien!"

"Hey!" the little fire ball yelled indignantly from its place on Lynn's shoulder.

"Leave Kien alone," the ginger sniffed, leaping to the demon's defense. "Unless you want me to start going off about you."

"Hey guys, break it up!" Lucy interjected, holding her hands out. "We're all friends here. So back to the problem... what do we do with him?" The blonde looked down at Leon with a finger tapping her chin, thinking.

"I say we bring him back to the village, use Renee's shadow bind on him again so that he can't escape, and try our best to persuade him against wasting another day on a hopeless cause. And to call off the attack on the village, of course," Lynn added the last bit after receiving a scowl from Natsu's direction.

Gray's laugh was dry and humorless. "Good luck with that. There's no way he'll believe that Deliora is dead unless he sees it for himself."

"No kidding," Renee added grudgingly, glancing over at the unconscious form near her feet. "We should also have a couple people on guard duty to make sure that he doesn't escape and that his friends don't decide that they still want to try destroying the village."

"Right," the brunette's sister replied, nodding her head in agreement. "We should have two people guarding the gate, and one person guarding Leon. The other two can work on trying to talk to him."

"I'll guard the village!" Natsu volunteered, jumping up again excitedly and spouting flames into the air.

"Woah, careful!" Lucy cried, frantically waving her hands at her pink haired friend. "Natsu, you're going to start a forest fire!" She sighed heavily. "I'll guard Leon, I guess. Or whatever his name is."

"And I'll be on guard duty with Natsu," Gray sighed, his eyes still closed.

"No, you're not. You're going to be interrogating Leon with me. Renee will be on guard duty with Natsu," Lynn corrected. "We all know he'll need the help," she added under her breath, smirking slightly in the pink haired boy's direction.

"Why?" Gray gasped, incredulous. "He's never going to listen to me. Can't someone else do it? Can't you just do it by yourself?"

"You know Leon best, Gray. Things would just be a lot easier for me if you were there."

The dark haired boy glowered for a moment, thinking. "Fine," he finally snorted, resigned.

"Okay!" Lynn closed, clapping her hands together and looking around in case she had forgotten anything. "Now that that's settled, let's get moving."

With that, the five humans, the cat, and the demon set off into the woods in the direction of the village, Lynn in the lead. They trudged through the thick underbrush in silence for what seemed like hours, barely a word being spoken by anyone the entire trip. Lucy didn't summon Horologium this time, likely getting used to such long treks.

Lynn breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the sharp wooden gates rise above the trees ahead of the group. They'd been walking for a really long time, and she was ready to crash. Not that she'd be able to, of course. She still had quite a bit of work to do. As they approached the village, the ginger noticed a figure standing in front of the wall, arms crossed. They were still too far away for Lynn to tell who the person was, assuming that she even knew them in the first place.

Once the group had gotten close enough to see the details of the person in front of the gate, the Fairy Tail mages stopped in their tracks, their expressions aghast. It was a girl with long, straight, bright scarlet hair and pale skin. She looked a bit older than Natsu, Lucy, and Renee, so Lynn had to guess that she was around eighteen or nineteen. She wore armor on her torso, but on the bottom she wore a blue skirt and a pair of high black boots. She was scowling darkly at the approaching group, her face murder.

Lucy, Gray, and Natsu each paled visibly when they saw her. "Er-Erza?" the blonde gasped, horrified. She backed up a step, her two companions doing the same. "Erza!" she cried again, turning on her heel and dashing back into the jungle.

"Run for your lives!" Happy screamed, sprouting white, feathery wings and taking off after Lucy. Natsu and Gray followed suit, passing the confused Lamia Scale mages and leaving them in the dust.

Erza's expression grew even fiercer as the watched them run, and suddenly she was sprinting after them. "You aren't going anywhere!" she roared, causing Kien to squeak.

Renee leaned over to whisper in her sister's ear, keeping an eye on the enraged red haired girl. "Should we do something?" she asked, unsure of the current situation.

"Stop them! Quick!" the ginger yelped in response, waving wildly at the retreating group of mages.

"What?! Okay, um…" the older girl stammered, stretching out a hand and writing on the air in a panic. Putting the rune on the ground, she pointed to Erza with one hand and Natsu with the other. "Shadow bind!" Even as she said those words, she busied herself with writing out another disk, this time pointing to Lucy and Gray upon setting it down. "Shadow bind!" They all froze in place, unable to move.

The red haired girl in armor glared intensely at the shadow demon slayer who had trapped her, absolutely furious. "What are you doing?" she demanded, seething. "You're interfering with Fairy Tail business!"

"I'm Lynn," the ginger said carefully, gesturing to herself, "and this is my sister Renee. We're from Lamia Scale." Erza's only response to her words was to stare at them darkly. Lynn cleared her throat uncomfortably, glancing at her sister for support. "Um… We need your help. Only for a moment."

"I don't care," Erza growled. "I'm here to get these three and take them back to the guild. Now release me and let me do my job."

"No," the ginger girl said defiantly, surprising both the armored mage and her sister. "We're not letting you go until you agree to help us. And we're not letting any of you leave this island until this job is completed."

Natsu and Gray looked at each other, eyes wide with disbelief. "That girl doesn't know what she's getting herself into!" the dark haired boy commented, shaking his head. Natsu nodded vigorously in agreement.

"If you agree to help us, we could split the profit," Lynn continued, trying to reason with the stubborn armored girl. "You and your guild could have half of the money, as well as the zodiac gate key for your stellar spirit mage." She nodded to Lucy, whose brown eyes had lit up at the mention of the key.

"Please, Erza!" she pleaded. "That key could make me stronger as a mage! That's a good thing, right?"

Erza didn't reply for a long while, considering the ginger girl's 'offer'. "If we help you, we can't accept the money. Technically, these three shouldn't even be here in the first place. It would be wrong of us to accept the reward." She sighed, her expression still far from happy, but at least she seemed a bit more calm. "Fine, we'll help. But you have to let us go as soon as this is over with."

"Deal," Lynn replied, smiling to herself and nodding. She turned to Renee. "You can stop now."

The brunette immediately released the Fairy Tail mages from her shadow bind enchantment, relieved. "Okay. So what now?"

"Now we stick with our original plan," Lynn stated, turning away from the bewildered rest of the group to stop at the village gate. "We interrogate Leon and persuade him to give up on the Moon Drip ritual. The guard will remain the same, except Erza will be on duty at the gate along with Natsu and Renee. We'll destroy the moon as soon as we have assurance that the Moon Drip won't start up again."

"This interrogation won't include torture, will it?" Erza asked of the ginger, eyeing her warily.

"Of course not!" the fourteen-year-old insisted, shocked that anyone would even think that she would do such a thing. "Besides, it's actually less of an interrogation and more of a-"

"Good."

While the two 'redheads' had been talking, Renee had gone to the gate, standing with her neck craned so that she could see the guard at the top, who had been watching the entire interaction with much interest. "Are you just going to keep standing there gawking at us, or are you going to let us in?" she demanded irritably, her normally good mood wearing thin.

The man jumped at her voice, realizing that her question had been directed to him. He nodded vigorously before momentarily disappearing behind the crude wooden wall, the gate grating open just moments later.

Renee strode through the village without a word or passing glance to anyone, entering the hut they'd slept in the night before and tossing Leon on the floor. "None of you would happen to have any rope, would you?"she asked as everyone else filtered in behind her.

"Why would we have-" Gray began, but he cut off when he saw Erza reaching into her armor and pulling out a long coil of thick rope.

She held it out to Renee. "Will this do? It was meant for Natsu, Gray, and Lucy, but since their capture is being delayed, you may use it."

The rest of the Fairy Tail mages paled as the brunette took the rope, dumping Leon in a sturdy chair and tying him up in a series of tight, complex knots. Standing, she dusted off her hands as she eyed her work. "Thanks."

Lynn walked further into the room, pulling out her own chair and sitting down. "Alright guys, it's time to split off into our positions. Natsu, you get the front gate. Erza and Renee will patrol the perimeter- Renee on the outside and Erza on the inside. Lucy will stand guard outside of this hut, and Gray and I will remain in here to interrogate Leon. Any questions?" Silence. "Good. Now go."

Everyone left, excluding Gray, who stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, unsure of what to do. "You know," he said after an extended pause, "you really shouldn't order Erza around. You don't want to get on her bad side, especially if you're planning on joining the guild."

"I know," Lynn sighed, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes. "But in this case, it's kind of necessary."

"I guess so..." The dark haired boy walked over to one of the corners and sat with his back against the wall, closing his eyes. He was exhausted. "So what do we do now?"

"Wait for him to wake up, I guess."

Gray scowled. "That could take a while," he said. "Mind if I take a nap while we wait?"

"Only if I get to wake you up with a tinsy bit of fire," Lynn replied, flashing a faint, evil smile in the older boy's direction. He didn't notice, of course, since his eyes were still closed.

"Sure," the dark haired boy said, catching the ginger somewhat by surprise. "Cause that's just how tired I am."

Lynn stared at him for a few minutes, resting her chin on her palm. Gray was a very strange person. Then again, _everyone _in Fairy Tail was supposed to be strange. Renee would fit in perfectly, and the fourteen year old figured that it would be nice to feel normal in comparison. Fairy Tail was a good guild, and she couldn't wait to join. Life would certainly be more interesting, that was for sure.

She yawned, slumping down into her chair tiredly. She fought keep her eyes open, but that was getting harder and harder to do. She wasn't used to staying up so late, and she'd used magic that day on top of that.

A knock on the door startled her, and she bolted up suddenly, the chair clattering loudly on the floor. Neither Gray or Leon stirred at the noise. Ice mages and their heavy sleeping.

"Who is it? What do you need?" Lynn called to whoever was at the door, leaning down to pick up the chair and setting it upright again.

The door opened a crack, and Lucy popped her head in. "It's the mayor's... um..." she leaned back outside, saying something that the redhead couldn't quite hear to someone there. "The mayor's... messenger... is here," she said, sticking her blonde head back into the room so that Lynn could hear her. "He says that the mayor wants to speak to you."

"What about?" Lynn sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I kind of need to stay here so I'll know when Leon wakes up, and Gray certainly isn't going to be able to do that job for me."

Lucy glanced over at the wall where the dark haired boy was, passed out with his shirt missing. Glancing around to see where it had gone, she found it on Leon's face. How had that happened? "No kidding," she said.

"Pardon me," interrupted a new voice. A green demon's head appeared in the doorway above Lucy, who gave a tiny shriek and backed out. "Miss," he said, addressing Lynn. "The mayor would really like to see you now. If it would make you feel better, I could wait here and inform you should the boy wake up while you're away."

The ginger thought about it, glancing over at Leon as she fiddled with the tip of her braid. "Fair enough," she finally replied, exiting the hut. The messenger backed out of the way as she did so, giving her space to get by. "Where is he? Just point me in the right direction, and I'm sure I can get there myself." The messenger nodded towards a building a little ways down the makeshift dirt road, bigger and in slightly better condition than the rest. Lynn smiled gratefully before heading off in the direction of the mayor's house, or whatever it was. She figured that the sooner she left, the sooner she'd be back to hopefully convince Leon to call off the attack on the village and the Moon Drip ritual.

The ginger sighed heavily when she reached the door, raising a fist to lightly knock on its rough wooden surface. What did the mayor want, anyway? The door opened, and a rather large, muscular demon peered out at her. It was hard to see his features in the flickering light of the torches a few feet away, but she could see that he had ram's horns jutting out from either side of his head, and his eyes glowed red. He ushered her in without a word, shutting the door behind her the moment she'd stepped through the threshold. He stood by the door, unmoving, as she walked further into the relatively large room and sat at the simple dining table in the middle, across from the mayor.

"You wanted to see me, Mayor?" Lynn asked, plastering a sweet, polite smile on her face. This was significantly harder to do than usual, considering how tired and irritated she was. Hopefully this conversation wouldn't last long, and hopefully it wouldn't turn out to be a complete waste of time.

"Yes, I did," the mayor replied in his deep, scratchy demon voice, narrowing his eyes at the girl in front of him. "You are the one in charge, are you not?"

Lynn mulled it over for a minute, then shrugged, shaking her head. "I guess I am, in a way," she said slowly, peering at him suspiciously. While she would normally feel pretty flattered, it probably wasn't good to be considered the leader in this case. The mayor didn't seem particularly happy, and he obviously needed somebody to vent at. So the conversation was very likely going to be a complete waste of time, as she'd feared.

"I see." The mayor slumped back into his chair, scowling. While this expression normally would have been frightening in and of itself, seeing it on the face of a demon was a hundred times more terrifying. Lynn gulped involuntarily, glancing away from his face and letting her eyes wander to the fireplace, where they stayed.

"In that case," the mayor continued, not seeming to notice the girl's discomfort, "would you mind explaining to me why you've brought a potential threat inside of the village? Better yet, please tell me what this boy has to do with your mission, which is to destroy the moon. I'd very much like to know."

Lynn fought to keep herself from rolling her eyes. She had better, more important things to do than to be interrogated by her employer. "He's the cause of the problem," she explained slowly, as though speaking to a child. "It's because of a ritual he's been conducting that the moon is purple, and therefore is the cause of all of your troubles. We need to convince him to stop the ritual before we can do as you've asked."

The mayor grunted, furrowing his brow as he thought. "Why don't we just keep him captive? The ritual will stop and you can destroy the moon then, right?"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple, sir," the ginger girl replied, shaking her head. She still wouldn't look at him. "He's not alone, you see. He has at least three mages and an entire cult as accomplices, and I seriously doubt that even their leader's abduction will keep them from achieving their goal. The ritual will continue unless we can specifically convince Leon to call it off. That's why we-"

She cut off when one of the villagers suddenly burst into the room in a panic, breathing heavily. "It's... the boy..." she panted, using the door frame as support. Her long purple claws left gouges in the soft wood, but it was already so beaten up anyway that the marks likely wouldn't be too noticeable in the future. "The... boy with... the... white hair."

Lynn sat up immediately, suddenly completely alert as she focused all of her attention on the demon woman. "Leon?" she asked, feeling a chill run up her spine. She felt that she already knew, but she had to ask anyway. "What about Leon? What happened?"

It took her a moment to reply since she was still gasping for breath, but eventually the villager raised her head so that she was staring steadily into the fourteen year old's wide eyes. "The boy... Leon... has escaped."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"I'm telling you, it's not my fault!"

"Well if you had done a better job guarding the perimeter-"

"If he'd come in that way, I would have noticed!"

"_Should _have noticed, you mean! Problem is, you never take jobs seriously!"

"That is a filthy lie! Where would you be without me, huh? I always do all of the hard work on our missions, and what do you do? Stand on the sidelines bossing me around!"

Gray sighed as he half-listened to the sisters' arguing, wincing whenever he tried to move. Lynn had burned him nearly to a crisp when she'd found out what happened, and now he hurt all over. Why did he have to take that kind of abuse from a kid? He couldn't help but side with Renee on this argument, although he didn't say anything.

"You know what?!" the brunette was shouting, her hands planted firmly on her hips as she fixed her sister with a glare that could make grown men run away in terror. "How about you stop blaming me for everything and start doing something productive?! At the very least, you could yell at the people who actually did something wrong!" She gestured towards Gray and Lucy, who jumped when she realized that she had been dragged into the conflict. Gray scowled, thinking that maybe he wasn't on Renee's side, after all.

"Hey!" the dark haired boy growled, glowering at the both of them. "Don't bring us into this!"

Lynn laughed dryly, the fury showing in her blue eyes. "Don't bring you into it? You brought yourself into it when you decided to take a nap on the job!"

"Guys, please," Lucy pleaded, stepping in to separate the quarreling teenagers. "This is not the time to fight. We need to plan what we're going to do next, right?"

Everyone stopped and stared at her for a moment, as though trying to decide whether or not to listen to her. Finally, Renee sighed.

"She's right," she said, folding her arms and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "Fighting like this is pointless. We should focus on regrouping and stopping the Moon Drip... again."

"Regrouping. Right," Lynn muttered, looking around. Then in a louder voice she asked, "Where's Natsu?"

"Why? You hungry?"

"Gray..."

"Fine."

Renee ignored the two of them, looking about the village herself for a moment. "We didn't leave him at the gate, did we? Does he even know what happened?"

"Um..." Lucy, Lynn, and Gray glanced at each other sheepishly, shrugging. "Yes and no?" the redhead said, looking over at the entrance. "Somebody should probably go get him."

"I'll do it," the brunette sighed, rolling her eyes. "I need a break from you guys, anyway." She smirked at Gray's annoyed expression and headed off towards the gate at a jog.

She didn't really blame her sister for getting frustrated. Lynn always blew up in people's faces when she didn't understand something; it was just how she was. None of them really knew how Toby had gotten in. All they knew was that he'd shown up at the hut, paralyzed Lucy and the demon filling in for Lynn, and ran off with Leon in tow. Now there they were a couple of hours later, just pulling themselves together enough to start coming up with a plan. What a hopeless bunch of kids they were.

Renee stopped at the foot of the gate, shielding her eyes from the light of the morning sun as she looked up to the man at the top. "Hey!" she called, waving in a big, sweeping motion with her other hand. The guard looked down and saw her, opening the gate immediately when he realized who it was. The brunette grinned, giving him a thumbs-up before exiting the village's interior. "Thanks!"

She found Natsu just outside the walls, yelling at some poor old man with a cart full of cabbages. What was that idiot doing? Happy was nowhere to be seen, and Renee didn't really bother looking.

Walking up to the dragon slayer, she cleared her throat loudly. No response. She tried tapping his shoulder, but he still paid her no attention. The brunette was beginning to understand why her sister had slapped him to wake him up the night before. This boy was so completely ignorant of her presence, it was almost like he was doing it on purpose.

"Natsu!" she barked, raising an eyebrow when he _still _didn't respond. Was he actually that dense, or was he really ignoring her?

Either way, there was one thing she knew would definitely get his attention. Backing up a step, she kicked him hard in the crotch, jumping back to avoid any attack he might throw at her. She needn't have worried.

Natsu let out a sound like that of an injured wild animal, collapsing on the ground immediately with his eyes watering. He clenched his teeth angrily when he saw Renee, who was now leaning over him with a grin on her face.

"How'd you get down there?" she asked innocently, stretching out a hand to help him up. He only scowled in response, leaping up on his own a moment later. His eyes were still pained and his jaw was still clenched, but he didn't show his suffering otherwise. He seemed more enraged than anything else.

"What did you have to go and do that for?!" he cried, shaking a fist at the brunette threateningly. "That hurt! How would you like it if I snuck up behind you and kicked you there, huh?"

Renee silenced him by holding up a hand with three fingers up, counting off her points as she went along. "Okay, for starters; I didn't sneak up on you. Unless you are completely deaf and don't have any feeling in your shoulders, you should have known I was there. Next, I'm a girl. You can't just go around beating up girls, or didn't you know? Lastly; again, I'm a girl. It wouldn't bother me anywhere near as much as it bothers you."

The pink haired boy only glowered at her for a moment, crossing his arms indignantly as tiny flames burned on his head and arms. "So what do you want?" he finally asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Oh, nothing important. I just came here to tell you that Leon escaped, is all. No biggie."

"What?!" Natsu's eyes bugged out of his head and his entire body burst into flames, sending the man he'd been yelling at earlier running off into the jungle, leaving his cart behind. The scene was actually quite comical, and Renee had to put a hand over her mouth to keep herself from laughing too hard. "When?! How?! I bet it was that shady cabbage vendor! I knew he was up to something..."

Renee waited patiently for his nonsensical rambling to subside, drumming her fingers on her arm. Where _did _he get these ideas from? That poor cabbage vendor just couldn't get a break. Why had Natsu even been yelling at him in the first place? Maybe posting him as the gate guard hadn't been the brightest idea on Lynn's part. The brunette wouldn't have been surprised in the least if Toby had just walked in through the gate while the dragon slayer was busy yelling at some poor villager.

"You done?" she asked, shifting her attention from her thoughts back to Natsu.

He paused, staring back at her with a confused and bewildered expression. "Done with what?" He was so completely hopeless and clueless, it was a wonder he ever got anything done at all.

"The ranting," the brunette explained, rolling her eyes. Then before he could respond, she continued, "Everyone else is waiting for you outside the hut we slept in two nights ago. You go on ahead and meet up with them. I'm going to go talk to the watch."

"Okay. Happy!" Natsu called, starting off through the gate. The blue cat suddenly flew out of the trees, his wings retracting as he landed on his friend's head. Apparently he'd been there the whole time, but hadn't said anything. Perhaps he'd been asleep.

Satisfied that the two of them were headed in the right direction, Renee melted into nothing more than a vaguely human shadow on the wall, drifting up and above the trees until she was at the top, where she solidified again. The man who stood watch there nearly fell over the side when he noticed her there, his eyes wide and more than a little frightened. Maybe she should have warned him before she'd used her magic to get up there. She kept forgetting that her abilities had a tendency to scare people. Oh, well.

"Hey," the brunette greeted the spooked guard, walking up to him and sitting down on a large wooden crate that just so happened to be right there. "Mind if I ask you a few questions? I'm trying to figure out how an intruder managed to get in a few hours ago."

"S-sure," the man stuttered, struggling to focus on what the girl was saying rather than the fact that she'd just appeared out of nowhere. "I'll do what I can to help you, miss."

Renee frowned. "Good. Okay for starters, don't call me 'miss'. I have a name, and I definitely prefer it to that kind of stuff."

"What is it, then?"

"Renee. And what's yours? I'd like to call you by your name as well, if you're cool with that," the brunette said, grinning at the burly man in front of her.

"Marco."

The seventeen-year-old nodded. "Marco. Nice. I like it." Crossing her legs up on the box, she leaned forward with her chin resting on one of her fists. Marco backed away slightly, feeling that his little bubble of personal space was being invaded. This girl was strangely intimidating.

"So Marco," she said, absentmindedly twirling a strand of her chestnut colored hair around her finger. "How long have you been up here?"

The stocky guard paused a moment before giving his reply, thinking. "I started at about midnight last night."

"So you were here at the time of the break-in. Good. Did you see anything suspicious within the first hour of Natsu guarding the gate?"

"The first hour? You couldn't even hold on to a captive for an hour?"

Renee's expression instantly snapped from friendly and curious to dangerous and hostile. Marco broke out into a sweat, continuing on in a rush so as not to anger her further. "The first thing that boy did was stop the man with the cabbage cart from entering the village! Well, he was a demon then. Anyway, I tried to tell him that it was alright and that he was just a harmless farmer, but he wouldn't listen to me! It was like talking to a rock."

The brunette's scowl vanished, replaced by a thoughtful frown. "That poor cabbage man," she said, shaking her head. "There's something you haven't told me yet. Please go on, Marco."

"There was one other person to come through the gate while your friend was... erm... distracted."

Renee raised an eyebrow, and Marco couldn't help but to shrink away slightly in fear. Why was he so scared of a teenage girl? "What did this person look like?" she asked slowly, her voice like ice. The guard felt chills just listening to it.

"Like a partially transformed demon," he said, suddenly even more wary of the brunette in front of him. "Which I thought was rather odd, since it was night time. He was tall and skinny, with dog ears and long green claws."

Renee remained silent for a long time, staring sightlessly at the jungle to her left. Realizing that she was starting to make Marco nervous, she turned to face him again with a smile. "Thanks, that's all I needed to know," she said, standing up and perching on the edge of the wall closest to the village interior. "It was nice talking with you, Marco. Toodles."

And with that she hopped off the edge, turning into a shadow about halfway down so as not to needlessly injure herself. She walked briskly towards the spot where she'd left the rest of the group, thinking that they'd probably be waiting for her by this point.

Lynn shook her head as her sister approached, likely wondering what had taken her so long. Erza, who had been investigating the border for any signs of disturbance, was back, frowning at the lot of them with her arms crossed. Apparently, she still wasn't happy about being stuck with the job, but who could blame her? From the way they'd lost their captive so quickly the night before, they didn't exactly seem like the best people to put one's trust in.

"I know how Toby got in," Renee announced to the group the moment she was within earshot. "He just came in through the gate while Natsu was yelling at some poor man with a cabbage cart. Marco, the sentry, let him in because he thought he was one of the villagers affected by Moon Drip."

Lynn sighed, planting her forehead in her palm in exasperation. "That idiot," she said, shaking her head again. She looked up and around, then back to her partner, frowning. "Where is he, anyway? You said you were going to get him."

"I... did..." The brunette trailed off, noting the pink haired dragon slayer's absence for the first time. "Huh? I told him to come here before I went to talk to Marco..."

"Well, he didn't listen," Gray pointed out. His shirt had been taken along with Leon, so for once he actually had a valid excuse for not wearing it.

Renee shot him an icy glare, crossing her arms indignantly. "Obviously."

"Any idea where he might have gone?" Lynn hissed, her anger and frustration from earlier beginning to boil over again.

Her older sister paused before answering, thinking. "He might have gone after the cabbage guy," she said, shrugging. "For some reason, he seemed convinced that he was up to no good. The poor old man ran off into the woods after a few hours of being yelled at for no reason."

"Well this is just great," the ginger seethed, tugging anxiously at the tip of her braid. "We were _going _to go after Leon once we were all here, but I guess that's impossible now since you let one of our team run off into the jungle by himself! Who knows when that idiot will be back?!"

Renee's expression darkened, and Gray and Lucy backed away a few steps to avoid the oncoming storm. "There you go again, blaming me for everything!" she yelled, clenching her fists at her sides until her knuckles somehow turned whiter than the rest of her. "I did what I _volunteered _to do! Heck, I even went and did some investigating for you so that you'd calm down about how Leon managed to escape, and you still treat me like I'm some useless piece of baggage that can't do anything right! It's not my fault that Natsu is an incompetent, unreliable little kid, so get off my case and do something useful _yourself_!"

"I've done nothing _but _work since we started this mission!" Lynn retorted, her face very quickly turning as red as her hair. "Because _you _guys are so dense, I've had to come up with literally every single plan of action so far myself! Without me, you'd be nothing more than a chaotic mess!"

"We _are _a chaotic mess!"

"_Stop it_! _Both of you shut up right now_!"

The siblings fell silent immediately, frozen in place as they stared, wide eyed, at a very annoyed Erza Scarlet. She fixed them with a murderous glare that could rival Renee's own, drawing herself up to her full height until she seemed to tower over the other mages, although in reality she was only slightly taller than Lucy. She gripped the hilt of her sword tightly, and looked about ready to use it.

"Yes, ma'am," the girls simultaneously squeaked, backing away from each other quickly and looking down at the ground in shame.

Erza sighed. "We need to decide what to do now, since our previous plan doesn't look like it's going to work out," she said. "Any ideas?"

"I could probably catch up to Natsu and bring him back," Renee said, frowning. "I don't know how long that'll take, though, so we should probably figure out something else for the rest of you to do in the meantime."

Lynn thought. "There isn't really much else _to _do."

"Whatever. I suppose it doesn't really matter what you guys do. The sooner I leave, the better a chance I have of finding Natsu quickly. See you later."

The brunette huffed and left with her arms folded across her chest, still mad with her little sister. That girl could just be so impossible sometimes. It was infuriating! Renee hated that they fought so often, but she couldn't just let Lynn insult her without doing anything to defend herself. She wished that she could.

Once she had gotten out of the gates and away from the other mages, Renee felt all of the anger seep out of her. Having even the tiniest bit of time to herself could do wonders for her mood. It wasn't that she disliked being around people... she just hadn't always been the best at interacting with others. Especially since she had a tendency to accidentally scare people off.

The brunette's train of thought immediately came to a halt when she caught sight of the tracks. Something was off. Instead of forming a single trail, as she had expected, Natsu and the old man's footprints went in two completely different directions. She narrowed her eyes at the ground, beginning to suspect the dragon slayer's reasons for running off.

He obviously wasn't after the cabbage man. Natsu had the nose of a dragon, which meant that tracking the guy would have been no problem for him. No, he was after something else. Something that was probably significantly more dangerous than a poor old man with a cart full of vegetables.

Renee groaned when she noticed the second, fainter set of prints mixed in with the pink haired boy's. They went to and from the jungle in nearly the exact same path, sometimes veering off slightly before intersecting again.

Toby. The idiot had gone after Toby and Leon, probably thinking to stop them himself. One would think that he would've learned from the last time he'd fought the ice mage, when he'd wound up lying at the bottom of the hill, frozen solid.

The brunette sighed and reluctantly began to follow the trail, pushing aside vegetation in order to get a better look at the ground. If she hurried, maybe she'd get lucky and find Natsu before he did anything stupid. Oh, who was she kidding? The temple ruins would be in flames by the time she got there.

Natsu ran through the trees at full speed, Happy not far behind. Following the dog boy was incredibly easy, as his dirty sock-like stench was so strong that even a normal person would probably be able to track him by it. The whiff of spearmint mixed in, he remembered, belonged to Leon. How had he not noticed the smell before?

Well, it didn't matter now. The dragon slayer was bound to catch up to them soon enough, since he was only a little bit behind and running. His quarry had to be moving painstakingly slowly, since only one of them was actually able to move. Unless Leon had woken up. Well, that little hint of hope had been short lived.

Natsu snarled in annoyance, thinking about not much else aside from what he was going to do when he caught them. His first priority was to stop the Moon Drip, since the moon apparently couldn't be destroyed while it was happening. He still didn't really understand what the ritual had to do with their mission, but Lynn and her sister seemed to know what they were talking about. Hopefully stopping it would involve getting to beat up the white haired ice mage, though.

The scent suddenly grew fainter, and the pink haired boy dug the heels of his sandals into the mud to bring himself to a halt. Had he missed a turn or something? Backing up a few steps, he picked up the smell at its full strength again, only to find that it just stopped. But that was impossible. They couldn't have vanished, could they?

He tried several times over to pick up the trail again, but to no avail. He backtracked a ways, but that didn't give him any ideas about where the mages had gone, either.

"Were are they?!" he roared, kicking the nearest tree as hard as he could. The blow left a sizable hole in the trunk, but his foot came away hurting significantly more than Natsu had intended. He half sat, half fell to the ground, clutching the wounded foot and biting his lip till it bled.

"Natsu?" his little blue cat friend said, landing on the moss a few feet away and tentatively padding over to the human boy. "What's wrong? Why can't we smell them?"

"I don't know! It's like they just disappeared!"

Happy looked around the large clearing they had wound up in, thinking. Noticing something odd, he scampered out into the middle, staring at the ground with wide eyes. "There's a big dent in the ground," he observed, nodding to himself.

"Hm?" Natsu stood, forgetting about his pain and walking into the center of the clearing so that he was beside the cat. Examining the edges of the glade, he saw that his friend was right. They were standing in a large, shallow, roughly oval hole in the soft, mushy ground. The scents of Toby and Leon started getting fainter at the edge of said hole, and only faded more the further into it the dragon slayer went.

"Weird," he said, absolutely puzzled by this new observation. "What could this be from?"

Happy sniffed the air, and suddenly his whiskers were straight as a pole and his eyes were popping right out of his head. "The mouse! Natsu, it's the mouse!"

"The mouse?! You mean that giant one that attacked us yesterday?!" Natsu took a whiff for himself, finding the scent easily now that he wasn't so focused on the trail. "You're right! So how did _that _thing disappear?!"

"Maybe it flew?"

"That's ridiculous."

"You're right..."

Natsu shrugged and rolled his eyes, throwing his hands up in the air in an 'I give up' gesture. "Whatever," he snorted, jumping up into one of the branches of the tree he'd kicked earlier. "We already know where they're going, so tracking them still won't be that hard." Climbing to the top of the tree, he looked around to get an idea of his bearings, jumping to the ground so that he landed roughly facing the direction of the temple where Deliora was entombed. "Let's go, Happy!"

Getting to the temple was significantly more difficult than Natsu had anticipated. Despite the pace he'd set for himself and his small friend, the fact that they got lost so often meant that it took the better part of the day to get to where they needed to be.

"Are we there yet, Natsu?"

"No, Happy. This is the fifth time you've asked me that! Give me a break already, will ya?!" Natsu shook his head grumpily at the little cat, in a sour mood since they'd gotten lost yet again.

"... Natsu?"

The dragon slayer turned, glaring back at Happy in annoyance. "What?"

"How about I just fly above the trees and tell you if you're going the right way?"

Natsu paused, giving the suggestion some serious thought. Probably more than was needed. "Happy, you're a genius!" he finally declared, grinning and exposing a row of razor sharp teeth.

The cat beamed with pride before flying up and through the thick canopy of leaves, making a bit of a racket and causing a few to come loose and rain down on the pink haired boy. He hadn't even been gone for a whole minute when he came back down, blue fur ruffled and sprinkled with leaves and twigs.

"This way," he said, pointing towards a cluster of brambles and leading his relieved friend towards them. They burst through the bushes and into a wide open space, in the center of which sat the temple ruins they'd been looking for. Happy smiled at Natsu's astounded expression, feeling rather smug. "We're here!"

"Heck yeah, we are!" the dragon slayer whooped, giving a little victory jump. He clasped his hands together, examining the crumbling building with a thoughtful expression. Then he grinned mischievously. "Happy, I have an idea."


End file.
